Life and death along gasoline alley: Darwinian and Lamarckian processes in a differentiating population
Article Abstract:
Despite the topic's centrality to theorizing in organizational ecology, no study has examined in detail how founding, failure, and transformation events combine over time to achieve population-level change. We examined Darwinian and Lamarckian processes of population reconfiguration within the gasoline retail industry at two nested levels of analysis, studying both individual outlets and parent companies. Our findings demonstrate how Darwinian processes at the unit (outlet) level may lead to Lamarckian adaptations at the organization (company) level through purposive replication of successful forms. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Academy of Management Journal
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0001-4273
Year: 1996
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Specialists, generaiists, and polymorphs: spatial advantages of multiunit organization in a single industry
Article Abstract:
Single-industry multiunit firms have adopted a polymorphic approach in successfully defining their core products and their peripheral services. Polymorphism is the combination of a parent firm's competencies and local adaptation to individual outlets. Thus, a polymorphic firm has the differential advantage of screening multiple environments and then adapting its subunits to the existing conditions. This gives the firm the ability to maintain its competencies while maximizing adaptation to the local environment.
Publication Name: Academy of Management Review
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0363-7425
Year: 1999
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The work of the symbolic in institutional processes: Translations of rational myths in Israeli high tech
Article Abstract:
Institutionaliation as translation is explored using the discourse of a high tech in Israel around the millennium as a case study. Results reveal that the institutionalization involves the translation of generic rational myths into specific ones, which change over time in relation to material fluctuations and depend on the dynamics of local institutional spheres.
Publication Name: Academy of Management Journal
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0001-4273
Year: 2006
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