Systematic differences in the determinants of firm failure between firms that fail early in their life and those that fail after having successfully negotiated the early liabilities of newness and adolescence are identified. Analysis of data from 339 Canadian corporate bankruptcies suggests that failure among younger firms may be attributable to deficiencies in managerial knowledge and financial management abilities. Failure among older firms, on the other hand, may be attributable to an inability to adapt to environmental change. (Liability of Newness; Resource-Based View; Bankruptcy)

Simulation modeling provides a powerful methodology for advancing theory and research on complex behaviors and systems, yet it has been embraced more slowly in management than in some associated social science disciplines. We suspect that part of the reason is that simulation methods are not well understood. We therefore aim to promote understanding of simulation methodology and to develop an appreciation of its potential contributions to management theory by describing the nature of simulations, its attractions, and its special problems, as well as some uses of computational modeling in management research.

This paper characterizes the welfare-maximizing equilibrium performance and duration of stochastic partnerships, in an economy in which partners choose each period costly observable efforts, voluntary wages, and whether to leave their current relationship to form a new partnership. Welfare comparative statics are also provided: higher states are associated with higher joint payoffs and, in the special case of an exogenous stochastic process, with both higher joint stage-game and joint continuation payoffs as well as longer-lasting relationships. Unlike in non-stochastic repeated games with re-matching, (i) equilibrium social welfare is maximized by renegotiation-proof play within each partnership and (ii) maximal equilibrium welfare is strictly decreasing in the cost of partnership formation. 1

Previous research has predominately focused on individual-level variables as determinants of voluntary turnover. Less is known about organizational-level determinants, which are likely to be subject to more systematic control by organizations than individual factors. This longitudinal study is the first to explore organizational-level determinants of turnover in small firms. Data were obtained from 132 small business owners from the Greater Vancouver area of British Columbia, Canada and hypotheses were grounded in our analysis of the competitive dynamics of small firms. Our results show that firms that have more extensive formalization have higher voluntary turnover. This finding was contrary to those who argue that formalization has positive organizational and individual effects because it decreases role ambiguity. We also found that an owner's perception of the firm as successful had a greater impact on lowering voluntary turnover than the firm's actual level of financial performance...

Although many theories predict strong effects of organizational position on a variety of outcomes, studies that examine the propensity of firms to collectively change positions on the market are rare. We borrow ideas from theories that examine the precursors of organizational change but find that these predictions are often contradictory. Studies of inertia vs. exploration and of imitation vs. strategic differentiation and resource competition offer conflicting predictions. We reconcile the opposing arguments and develop a theory of collective change in strategic position by integrating ideas from established learning, institutional, ecological, and management theories. The core of our theory blends structural and cognitive processes and posits that the properties of the firms ’ external context interact with managerial perceptions of the resource space in which their firms operate. Interpretations of resource availability, competitive forces and collective identities clash as managers try to interpret their firm’s position through the behavior of their peers, as if reflecting in a looking glass. Empirical analyses of changes in strategic position among U.S. automanufacturers support our theory and lay out a framework for further integration among cognitive and structural perspectives. Most sociological and management theories consider market position a primary

Earlier versions of this paper benefited from the suggestions of Hayagreeva Rao, Harry Sapienza, Freek Vermeulen, and seminar participants at the University of Michigan and

department’s brown bag seminar, where I presented two previous versions of this paper.

In organizational ecology, we find the analysis of the impact exerted by competition between populations on vital ratios to be relatively under-developed. This paper intends to address this issue by developing new competition measurements whose common denominator is to give importance to organizational size. The application of these measurements in the case of competition between organizational forms in a population and their impact on mortality rates, demonstrates the usefulness of modelling competition on them. More specifically, results show how competition levels between firms in a population can be more adequately estimated when rival population mass is used (that is, the aggregate size of the organizations of which it is made up).