Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Emergence and Evolution of an Organizational Population: Management Consulting Firms in the United States, 1886-1997

新的组织群体的出现是社会变革的一个重要来源。新类型的组织在社会中产生新的产品、服务和工作安排。随着人口的增长，它变得越来越重要，例如，通过雇用更多的人，为更多的客户服务，以及建立对其产出的更多依赖。组织社会学的研究人员长期以来一直试图了解组织群体是如何出现和演变的。这项博士论文研究解决了三个关键问题：组织群体所处的环境如何影响其演变？群体内组织之间的差异如何影响他们的互动？组织变革如何影响生存和发展？这些问题将通过对美国管理咨询公司整个历史(1886-1997)的人口进行分析来解决。档案来源和访谈将被用来建立一个纵向数据库，其中包含每个公司每年的组织级数据。关于企业家、环境条件和重大事件对人口进化影响的假设将得到检验。这些结果将有助于组织社会学的理论建设努力，以及提供一个重要的组织群体的详细分析。

The emergence of new populations of organizations represents an important source of social change. New types of organizations generate novel products, services, and working arrangements within societies. As a population grows, it takes on increasing importance, e.g., by employing more people, serving more customers, and creating more dependence on its outputs. Researchers in organizational sociology have long sought to understand how organizational populations emerge and evolve. This doctoral dissertation research addresses three critical questions: How does the environment within which a population of organizations is embedded affect its evolution? How do differences between organizations within a population affect their interaction? And how does organizational change affect survival and growth? These questions will be addressed through an analysis of the population of U.S. management consulting firms over its entire history, 1886-1997. Archival sources and interviews will be used to construct a longitudinal database containing organization-level data for each firm in each year. Hypotheses for the effects of entrepreneurs, environmental conditions, and major events on population evolution will be tested. The results will contribute to theory-building efforts in organizational sociology, as well as furnish a detailed analysis of an important population of organizations.