The demography of corporations and industries

Most analysts of corporations and industries adopt the focal perspective of a single prototypical organization. Many analysts also study corporations primarily in terms of their internal organizational structures or as complex systems of financial contracts. Glenn Carroll and Michael Hannan bring fresh insight to our understanding of corporations and the industries they comprise by looking beyond prototypical structures to focus on the range and diversity of organizations in their social and economic setting. The result is a rich rendering of analysis that portrays whole populations and communities of corporations.

The Demography of Corporations and Industries is the first book to present the demographic approach to organizational studies in its entirety. It examines the theory, models, methods, and data used in corporate demographic research. Carroll and Hannan explore the processes by which corporate populations change over time, including organizational founding, growth, decline, structural transformation, and mortality. They review and synthesize the major theoretical mechanisms of corporate demography, ranging from aging and size dependence to population segregation and density dependence. The book also explores some selected implications of corporate demography for public policy, including employment and regulation.

In this path-breaking book, Carroll and Hannan demonstrate why demographic research on corporations is important; describe how to conduct demographic research; specify fruitful areas of future research; and suggest how the demographic perspective can enrich the public discussion of issues surrounding the corporation in our constantly evolving industrial society. All researchers and analysts with an interest in this topic will find The Demography of Corporations and Industries an invaluable resource.

Author Notes

Glenn R. Carroll is the Paul J. Cortese Distinguished Professor of Management at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.

List of Figures	p. xi
List of Tables	p. xv
Preface	p. xix
Acknowledgments	p. xxvii
Part I The Case for Corporate Demography	p. 1
1 About Organizations	p. 3
1.1 Aging and Learning	p. 3
1.2 Inertia and Change	p. 5
1.3 Competitive Intensity	p. 7
1.4 Global Competition	p. 9
1.5 Historical Efficiency	p. 11
1.6 Employment and Entrepreneurship	p. 12
1.7 A Look Ahead	p. 14
2 The Demographic Perspective	p. 17
2.1 Demography of Business Organizations	p. 18
2.2 Organizing Principles of Demography	p. 25
2.3 Formal Demography and Population Studies	p. 26
2.4 Demographic Explanation	p. 28
2.5 The Demography of the Work Force	p. 31
2.6 Internal Organizational Demography	p. 32
3 Toward a Corporate Demography	p. 35
3.1 Earlier Efforts	p. 36
3.2 Retaining the Classical Structure	p. 39
3.3 Making Demography Organizational	p. 40
3.4 A Research Strategy	p. 56
4 Forms and Populations	p. 59
4.1 Population versus Form	p. 60
4.2 Identity and Form	p. 67
4.3 Codes	p. 68
4.4 Organizational Forms	p. 73
4.5 Organizational Populations	p. 74
4.6 Systems of Forms	p. 76
4.7 Implications for Corporate Demography	p. 78
Part II Methods of Corporate Demography	p. 83
5 Observation Plans	p. 85
5.1 Designs in Organizational Research	p. 86
5.2 Trade-offs in Observation Plans	p. 89
5.3 Impact of Observation Plans	p. 95
6 Analyzing Vital Rates	p. 101
6.1 Event-History Designs	p. 101
6.2 Stochastic-Process Models	p. 110
6.3 Life-Table Estimation	p. 117
6.4 Constant-Rate Models	p. 127
7 Modeling Corporate Vital Rates	p. 135
7.1 Duration Dependence	p. 135
7.2 Dependence on Covariates	p. 139
7.3 Note on Left Truncation	p. 149
7.4 Comparing Designs by Simulation	p. 150
7.5 Simulation Findings	p. 155
8 Demographic Data Sources	p. 163
8.1 Criteria for Evaluating Sources	p. 164
8.2 Commonly Used Sources	p. 167
8.3 Using Multiple Sources	p. 185
8.4 Data Realities	p. 188
Part III Population Processes	p. 191
9 Organizational Environments	p. 193
9.1 Telephone Companies	p. 194
9.2 Modeling Environments	p. 197
9.3 Environmental Imprinting	p. 205
9.4 Imprinting in High-Tech Firms	p. 207
10 Density-Dependent Processes I	p. 213
10.1 Models of Population Growth	p. 214
10.2 Corporate Density Dependence	p. 216
10.3 Theory of Density Dependence	p. 222
10.4 Interpreting Density Dependence	p. 228
10.5 Weighted Density	p. 232
10.6 Programmatic Issues	p. 236
11 Density-Dependent Processes II	p. 239
11.1 Density Delay	p. 240
11.2 Population-Age Interactions	p. 243
11.3 Size Interactions	p. 251
11.4 Multilevel Processes	p. 253
12 Segregating Processes	p. 261
12.1 Resource Partitioning	p. 262
12.2 Research on Partitioning	p. 269
12.3 Size-Localized Competition	p. 274
Part IV Organizational Processes	p. 279
13 Age-Dependent Processes	p. 281
13.1 Models of Age Dependence	p. 282
13.2 Age-Related Liabilities	p. 288
13.3 Age and Growth Rates	p. 290
13.4 Theories of Age Dependence	p. 291
13.5 Core Assumptions	p. 296
13.6 Liabilities of Newness and Adolescence	p. 301
13.7 Liability of Senescence	p. 303
13.8 Alignment, Drift, and Obsolescence	p. 306
13.9 Liability of Obsolescence	p. 309
14 Size Dependence	p. 313
14.1 Size and Growth Rates	p. 315
14.2 Age, Size, and Mortality	p. 319
14.3 Automobile Manufacturers	p. 322
14.4 Extending the Formalization	p. 331
15 Initial Mobilizing	p. 339
15.1 Organizing Activities	p. 340
15.2 Theoretical Arguments	p. 343
15.3 Automobile Preproducers	p. 346
16 Organizational Transformation	p. 357
16.1 Theory and Research	p. 358
16.2 Structural Inertia	p. 362
16.3 Transformation and Mortality	p. 368
16.4 Innovation in Automobile Manufacturing	p. 374
Appendix A Property-Based Formalization of Inertia Theory	p. 377
Part V Selected Implications	p. 381
17 Organization Theory	p. 383
17.1 Equilibrium Orientation	p. 383
17.2 Alignment and Fitness	p. 385
17.3 Adaptation and Selection	p. 389
17.4 Speed and Efficiency of Change	p. 393
17.5 Historical Efficiency and Competition	p. 397
18 Regulation	p. 401
18.1 Early Telephony	p. 403
18.2 Interconnection Laws	p. 404
18.3 The Kingsbury Commitment	p. 406
18.4 Regulation and Deregulation in Banking	p. 411
18.5 System Dynamics after Deregulation	p. 414
18.6 Deregulation and Organizational Growth	p. 418
19 Employment	p. 423
19.1 Effects on Careers	p. 424
19.2 Corporate Demography and Job Shifts	p. 425
19.3 Job Creation and Dissolution	p. 426
19.4 Corporate Demography and Individual Mobility	p. 429
19.5 Employment Benefits and Social Welfare	p. 432
19.6 Effects of Careers on Corporate Demography	p. 437
20 Organizational Diversity	p. 439
20.1 Beer and Wine Industries	p. 440
20.2 Diversity, Careers, and Inequality	p. 444
20.3 Toward a Community Ecology of Corporations	p. 451
References	p. 453
Index	p. 481

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