Dynamics of Organizational Populations

这项提议是为了开发和测试组织兴衰的数学模型。提出了五种不同的组织内部流程模型和外部环境流程模型。其目标是了解在很长一段时间内塑造组织结构的力量，并提供一个理论结构来解释组织变革如何产生社会变革。这项工作是由PI和合作者之前的工作发展而来的。PI将通过与不同行业的创建、增长和死亡率的数据进行比较来评估模型：工会、银行、人寿保险公司和啤酒厂。该项目寻求开发一套跨越特定类型组织的理论和方法工具，用于进一步研究组织生态学。

This proposal is to develop and test mathematical models of the growth and decline of organizations. Five models, differing in details of processes internal to organizations and of their external surrounding, are proposed. The goal is to understand forces shaping organizational structures over long time spans, and to provide a theoretical structure for explaining how or- ganizational change produces changes in society. The work grows out of previous work by the PI and collaborators. PI will evaluate models by comparison with data on the founding, growth, and mortality of diverse industries: labor unions, banks, life insurance firms, and breweries. The project seeks to develop a set of theories and methodological tools cutting across specific types of organizations, for use in further studies of organi- zational ecology.