Organizations Evolving offers a unique theoretical framework for understanding organizational emergence, persistence, change, and decline. Synthesizing and integrating six paradigmatic approaches to organization theory, this updated and revised third edition presents an evolutionary view that provides a unified understanding of modern organizations and organization theory. Key features of the third edition include: A sophisticated analytic comparison of six major approaches to understanding modern organizations and their evolution An interdisciplinary focus, drawing extensively from sociology, social psychology, economics, history, management and entrepreneurship research Supplementary materials from academic journals and the popular press, and multi-media resources in an online companion Extensive case examples that illustrate key evolutionary processes Study questions designed for extended and reflective learning. Offering key insights and critical learning opportunities, this book is crucial reading for classes covering macro-organizational behaviour and the sociology of organizations. Students of management studies and entrepreneurship, particularly those with a focus on organization theory, will also benefit from its interdisciplinary approach.

The second of two volumes bringing together researchers from an array of disciplines including sociology, organization theory, strategy, and organizational behaviour, Entrepreneurialism and Society: Consequences and Meanings addresses the question of how entrepreneurship has transformed from an organizing activity into an ideology that is changing society. The authors investigate how the transformed meanings of entrepreneurship are causal in new social phenomenon such as organizational misconduct and driving inequality, but also how it may offer a promise to resolve those issues. Examining into the role of organizations in society, Entrepreneurialism and Society invigorates academic research by developing new perspectives on how entrepreneurs and their organizations shape our social world.

The first of two volumes bringing together researchers from an array of disciplines including sociology, organization theory, strategy, and organizational behaviour, Entrepreneurialism and Society: New Theoretical Perspectives addresses the question of how entrepreneurship has transformed from an organizing activity into an ideology that is changing society. The authors investigate the transformation of entrepreneurship into a social phenomenon, leading to an understanding of how entrepreneurship is shaping the acceptance of inequality, new employment relationships, changed understandings of social outcomes, altered policies, and social precarity. Examining the role of organizations in society, Entrepreneurialism and Society invigorates academic research by developing new perspectives on how entrepreneurs and their organizations shape our social world.

Organizations Evolving offers a unique theoretical framework for understanding organizational emergence, persistence, change, and decline. Synthesizing and integrating six paradigmatic approaches to organization theory, this updated and revised third edition presents an evolutionary view that provides a unified understanding of modern organizations and organization theory. Key features of the third edition include: A sophisticated analytic comparison of six major approaches to understanding modern organizations and their evolution An interdisciplinary focus, drawing extensively from sociology, social psychology, economics, history, management and entrepreneurship research Supplementary materials from academic journals and the popular press, and multi-media resources in an online companion Extensive case examples that illustrate key evolutionary processes Study questions designed for extended and reflective learning. Offering key insights and critical learning opportunities, this book is crucial reading for classes covering macro-organizational behaviour and the sociology of organizations. Students of management studies and entrepreneurship, particularly those with a focus on organization theory, will also benefit from its interdisciplinary approach.

This much-needed book draws together Howard Aldrich's key contribution to entrepreneurship research over recent decades. In an original introduction, the author first lays out the evolutionary approach, examining the assumptions and principles of 'selection logic' that drive evolutionary explanations. The book then expands on evolutionary theory as applied to entrepreneurship, emphasizing the role of historical and comparative analysis before focusing on the importance of social networks, particularly as they affect the genesis of entrepreneurial teams. Professor Aldrich takes a strategic approach to the creation of new organizational populations and communities, using examples from the commercialization of the Internet and the collapse of the Internet bubble. The book then presents his contributions to gender and family, offering a 'family embeddedness' perspective before focusing on the implications of entrepreneurship for stratification and inequality in modern societies, combining an evolutionary with a life course perspective. Finally, he concludes the book with another original essay, reflecting on future directions for entrepreneurship research. This mix of groundbreaking papers that introduced new concepts into the entrepreneurship literature will prove invaluable to scholars - graduate students and faculty members - interested in research on entrepreneurship. Professors of entrepreneurship and strategy as well as academics teaching organizational sociology courses will also find plenty of invaluable information in this important resource.

This much-needed book draws together Howard Aldrich's key contribution to entrepreneurship research over recent decades. In an original introduction, the author first lays out the evolutionary approach, examining the assumptions and principles of 'selection logic' that drive evolutionary explanations. The book then expands on evolutionary theory as applied to entrepreneurship, emphasizing the role of historical and comparative analysis before focusing on the importance of social networks, particularly as they affect the genesis of entrepreneurial teams. Professor Aldrich takes a strategic approach to the creation of new organizational populations and communities, using examples from the commercialization of the Internet and the collapse of the Internet bubble. The book then presents his contributions to gender and family, offering a 'family embeddedness' perspective before focusing on the implications of entrepreneurship for stratification and inequality in modern societies, combining an evolutionary with a life course perspective. Finally, he concludes the book with another original essay, reflecting on future directions for entrepreneurship research. This mix of groundbreaking papers that introduced new concepts into the entrepreneurship literature will prove invaluable to scholars - graduate students and faculty members - interested in research on entrepreneurship. Professors of entrepreneurship and strategy as well as academics teaching organizational sociology courses will also find plenty of invaluable information in this important resource.

When "Organizations and Environments" was originally issued in 1979, it increased interest in evolutionary explanations of organizational change. Since then, scholars and practitioners have widely cited the book for its innovative answer to this question: Under what conditions do organizations change?
Aldrich achieves theoretical integration across 13 chapters by using an evolutionary model that captures the essential features of relations between organizations and their environments. This model explains organizational change by focusing on the processes of variation, selection, retention, and struggle. The "environment," as conceived by Aldrich, does not refer simply to elements "out there"--beyond a set of focal organizations--but rather to concentrations of resources, power, political domination, and most concretely, other organizations.
Scholars using Aldrich's model have examined the societal context within which founders create organizations and whether those organizations survive or fail, rise to prominence, or sink into obscurity.
A preface to the reprinted edition frames the utility of this classic for tomorrow's researchers and businesspeople.