In this study, we address the topic of interorganizational network change by exploring factors that affect the choice of alliance and interlock partners. While many studies have been devoted to investigating various factors driving network partner choice, there is also an interesting and unexplored tension in this body of work. On the one hand, much work emphasizes change in social structureshowing that firms expand networks by forming new relationships with new partners. At the same time, other scholars emphasize stability of social structure -showing that firms tend to choose past exchange partners. We seek to reconcile this tension by proposing that firms form new relationships with new partners as a form of exploration, and form additional relationships with existing partnerships as a form of exploitation (March, 1991). Further, whether exploration or exploitation is chosen depends on the type of uncertainty that firms are facing: whether it is firm-specific or market-level uncertainty. We test our hypotheses using data on both interlock and alliance networks for the 300 largest U.S. firms during the 1988-1993 period. Our results provide some evidence that whether networks are stable or changing depends on the type of uncertainty experienced by firms.During the past twenty-five years, scholars have conducted substantial research on factors that affect partner selection in interorganizational networks. Partner selection is critical to network theory, as it is a fundamental driver of network stability and change. Pfeffer and Salancik (1978) were among the first scholars to draw attention to network change by showing that firms expand their networks by incorporating new players in an effort to alleviate the uncertainty and constraint that comes with being dependent on others (see also Burt, 1983;Gargiulo, 1993). Firms also expand their networks to learn about new practices and technologies (Kogut, 1988;Powell, Koput and Smith-Doerr, 1996).While this research focuses on network change through the alteration of network structure with new ties, a second stream of research emphasizes the stability of social structure (Wellman and Berkowitz, 1988). These studies suggest that firms will, under certain conditions, reinforce their existing network ties, forming additional relationships with pre-existing partners. For example, Podolny (1994) showed that in markets with a high degree of market uncertainty investment bankers tend to interact with those they have interacted with in the past, and Gulati (1995) showed that firms tend to repeat alliances with previous alliance partners. From this perspective, firms tend to reinvest in present network structures, rather than expanding them.The purpose of the current study is to reconcile these two perspectives and understand what determines how firms alter their network relationships. We seek to predict when firms will add new relationships and when they will expand the relationships already in place. The idea of expanding to new network partners versus reinforcing with exis...

This article aims to reestablish the long-standing conjecture that conformity is high at the middle and low at either end of a status order. On a theoretical level, the article clarifies the basis for expecting such an inverted U-shaped curve, taking care to specify key scope conditions on the social-psychological orientations of the actors, the characteristics of the status structure, and the nature of the relevant actions. It also validates the conjecture in two settings that both meet such conditions and allow for the elimination of confounding effects: the Silicon Valley legal services market and the market for investment advice. These results inform our understanding of how an actor's status interacts with her role incumbency to produce differential conformity in settings that meet the specified scope conditions.

three anonymous reviewers for their invaluable assistance and feedback on earlier drafts. Any errors or misrepresentations are the author's.Data on Silicon Valley law firms over a 50-year period were used to study the genealogy of organizational populations and its consequences for organizational life chances when a member of an existing firm leaves to found a new firm. Hypotheses and subsequent analysis suggest that the transfer of resources and routines between a parent organization and its progeny decreases life chances for the parent firm and increases life chances for the progeny. The results are contingent on the founder's previous position in the parent firm and time since the parenting event. In addition, I find that progeny have lower life chances when the parent is a failing firm, when there are multiple parents, and when the founder is a former senior partner of a large law firm.0sociologists have long considered the effects of the transfer of resources and routines from old to new organizations. The 1980s featured a relatively brief but active line of research that attempted to establish a framework for understanding new organizations as the progeny of parent organizations. Brittain and Freeman (1980) examined factors that lead organizational members to leave and start new organizations. Other scholars, such as McKelvey (1982), Carroll (1984a), Astley (1985), Freeman (1986), Hannan and Freeman (1986), and Romanelli (1989), have continued research in this vein. Each of these studies posited that some amount of a parent organization's "blueprint" would carry over to the new organization through the career experiences of the offspring's founders. Yet, despite this past work, at least two areas remain underdeveloped. First, there has been little formalization linking a genealogical framework with many of the key outcome variables of organizational sociology, such as an organization's structure, ability to adapt, likelihood of success (e.g., survival, profitability), innovativeness, or the attainment of organizational members. Consequently, scholars have overlooked another possible answer to one of the key questions raised in the past twenty-five years of organizational sociology, "Why do so many organizations look alike?" (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Hannan and Freeman, 1977). Second, while past efforts have emphasized the source of progeny, there have been few attempts to assess empirically the consequences of transferring resources and routines from parent organizations to their progeny. As a result, there are studies of the types of firms that parent new firms (Brittain and Freeman, 1980) and of the effect of founders' previous affiliations and experiences on new firms' success (e.g., BrOderl, Preisendorfer, and Ziegler, 1992; Burton, Sorensen, and Beckman, 2002) but no bridge between the two. This paper addresses each of these unexplored areas by developing and testing a framework to understand organizational life chances, one of the key outcomes in organizational sociology. Often associated with populatio...

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Using a study on foundings of Silicon Valley law firms, I propose and test an organizational theory on the genealogical persistence of gender inequality that emphasizes the routines (or blueprints) and experiences that founders transfer from their parent firms to their new firms. This transfer links the parent firm's gender hierarchy to women's advancement opportunities in the new firm. Founders from parent firms that historically had women in leadership positions, such that female leadership is institutionalized, are more likely to found firms that promote women into prominent positions. Conversely, founders from firms that historically had women in subordinate positions, such that female subordination is institutionalized, are less likely to promote women into prominent positions. Findings are consistent with the theory and also show that the persistence effect is stronger for founders who were previously lower-ranked employees and for founders who institute an organization of work similar to their parent firm. The study suggests that future research should investigate routines and structures that not only generate gender inequality unintentionally but are in turn replicated across generations of organization through the mobility of employees.

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S ince Baron and Bielby's (1980) call to engage more directly the role of organizations in stratification processes, an informative and compelling set of research has improved our understanding of how organizations affect individual attainment (see Kerckhoff 1995 for a review). One of the principal areas of research within this vein has been the mobility of women within organizations (e.g., Baron, Mittman, and Newman 1991;Cohen, Broschak, and Haveman 1998). Through work that has emphasized both individual ascriptive differences and structural bases of mobility and inequality (Rosenbaum 1984;Chase 1991;Blair-Loy 1999), a wealth of insight has been produced on the relationship between organizations and the attainment of women.The attainment of women is linked to a number of organizational and institutional factors. Many past studies examine factors internal to the employer (e.g., size, hierarchical structure, the use of job titles, demographic composition). Other research incorporates the environment of employers and often conceptualizes the environment abstractly in terms of market or institutional pressures (Edelman 1992; DiPrete and Explanations of gender inequality typically emphasize individual characteristics, the structure of internal labor markets, or pressures from the institutional environment. Extending the structuralist and institutional perspectives, this article argues that the demographic composition of an organization's exchange partners can influence the demographic composition of the focal organization when the focal organization is dependent upon its partners. Specifically, law firms with women-led corporate clients increase the number of partners who are women attorneys. Data on elite law firms and their publicly traded clients support a bargaining power hypothesis whereby law firms promote women attorneys when their corporate clients have women in three key leadership positions: general (legal) counsel, chief executive officer, and board director. These effects are stronger when the law firm has few clients, reinforcing the hypothesis that interorganizational influence is more vital when a focal organization is dependent on its exchange partner. The results also support a related explanation based on homophily theory. The analysis rules out several alternative explanations and establishes a relationship between the presence of women-led clients and the promotion of women attorneys in law firms.

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