Organizational Mortality: Disbanding Rates of Labor Unions

We begin with national labor unions. As we have noted in earlier chapters, ecological analysis of unions has special sociological interest because unions have combined elements of social movement and bureaucracy. The fact that unions have often had the character of social movements allows a range of sociological theory to be used in analyzing

Organizational Mortality: Exit Rates of Semiconductor Firms

Now we turn to a quite different application of our approach and models: the rate at which firms leave the semiconductor industry. Opportunities in this industry, emanating from changing technology and markets, are seized by venture capitalists and entrepreneurs in ways that have attracted much publicity and created a few large personal fortunes. The

Organizational Mortality: Failure Rates of Newspaper Firms

The third empirical test of the model of density dependence in rates of organizational mortality concerns the population of firms publishing news- papers in the San Francisco Bay area (in collaboration with Glenn Carroll). Partial likelihood (PL) is used in much the same manner as just described for the semiconductor firms. Lifetimes are broken

Organizational Mortality: Comparisons and Contrasts

Have populations of labor unions, semiconductor firms, and newspapers been subject to similar processes of density-dependent growth? In a general sense the answer appears to be yes. For each population, rates of mortality depended on density in essentially the same way. In all three studies the mortality rate fell with growing density to a

Niche Width and Mortality of Restaurants

For a number of reasons discussed below, we decided that populations of restaurant establishments were nearly ideal candidates for analysis of niche width and mortality. Because our study of restaurants was designed to test hypotheses from one kind of model, it is the most narrowly focused of the data sets. It is also the

Niche Width and Exit Rates of Semiconductor Firm

We turn next to discussion of our attempt to replicate these findings using data on the mortality of firms in the semiconductor industry. 1. Measurement We use the same definition of mortality reported in previous chapters- exits from the market, as tracked through references to listings in the Electronics Buyer’s Guide. We record for

Dynamics of Niche Width and Mortality of Firm: Comparisons and Contrast

Our model of niche width and mortality appears to work reasonably well for semiconductor firms as well as for restaurants. Two more different organizational forms would be hard to imagine. The differences between the restaurant and semiconductor studies are substantial. In the former disbandings are used to define mortality; in the latter, exits were