The Population Ecology of Interest Group Formation: Mobilizing for Gay and Lesbian Rights in the United States, 1950–98

Nownes, Anthony J.

doi:10.1017/s0007123403000346

Cited by 116 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…In these cases, the forms invoked cut across conventional industry boundaries or lie outside of the domain of industry as conventionally defined. Examples include social movement organizations (Minkoff 1999, Olzak and Uhrig 2001, Nownes 2004) and worker cooperatives (Ingram and Simons 2000).…”

Section: Population-based Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identities, Genres, and Organizational Forms

Hsu

Hannan

2005

Organization Science

455

426

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The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. I n recent years, there has been an increasing emphasis within organizational ecology on identity as a fundamental basis for the conceptualization and identification of organizational forms. This paper highlights the benefits of an identitybased conceptualization of organizational forms and outlines an identity-based agenda for organizational ecology. We begin by discussing fundamental properties of organizational identity, drawing extensively from the formal-theoretical conceptualization proposed by . We then build on this foundation by proposing a number of systematic ways in which forms can be specified and differentiated in terms of identity. We also address the challenge of measuring forms by discussing various approaches researchers may use to assess the beliefs contemporaneous audiences hold regarding organizational identities. This paper concludes with a discussion of research questions revolving around three issues core to an ecological approach to organizations: (1) the emergence of identities, (2) the persistence of identities, and (3) the strategic trade-offs among different types of identities. Key words: identity; organizational forms; organizational ecologyOver the past two decades, macro research on organizations has converged on a research strategy of analyzing the life histories of (all) organizations in specified populations, regarded as collections of organizations with common forms. Developing and refining this populationbased strategy has been beneficial in promoting certain craft standards once largely lacking in organizational research and in increasing the comparability of findings across studies. Yet, continued progress requires that the theoretical foundations of this approach be reworked.In particular, the basic concept of form lacks a clear specification. Current work continues to refer to initial formulations that spelled out only partial definitions (Hannan and Freeman 1977, 1984). As a result, guidelines for a crucial step in empirical research-the specification of meaningful population boundaries-are less than clear. As this style of research has diffused broadly beyond the relatively homogeneous group of organizational ecologists, such lack of clarity has become increasingly problematic.Fortunately, several recent strands of work have advanced our understanding of the issues involved in specifying forms and populations. As this work has progressed, it has opened new avenues of theory and empirical research on core issues in organization theory. This pap...

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Section: Population-based Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identities, Genres, and Organizational Forms

Hsu

Hannan

2005

Organization Science

455

426

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“…The number of groups that can be formed is not infinite. What we have learnt from the population ecology approach to interest group formation (Nownes, 2004;Nownes and Lipinksi, 2005) is that both founding rates and death rates of organisations are substantially affected by population density.…”

Section: Single Issue Pressure Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Changing Patterns of Group Politics in Britain

Grant

2008

Br Polit

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“…The population ecology literature points to key environmental factors that may dampen birthrates and hasten organizational disbanding. A sign of the salience of the population ecology approach is that it has provoked a multitude of subsequent exploratory, theory-testing and elaborative studies (see for instance Nownes, 2004;Halpin and Jordan, 2009; for a review see Halpin and Jordan, 2011).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Interest group survival: Explaining sources of mortality anxiety

Halpin

Thomas

2012

Int Groups Adv

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Executive Summary In order to engage in public policy, interest groups need to survive and thrive as organizations. What factors shape perceptions of group entrepreneurs as to the future prospects for their groups' survival? The careful and ambitious work of Gray and Lowery (and others working in the population ecology paradigm) has drawn attention to that fact that not all groups that are born survive. This observation raises the question: what leads groups to 'feel' anxiety about their organizational mortality? In their 1997 article, utilizing survey data on the organizational characteristics and situational dynamics of a sample of groups lobbying in several US states, Gray and Lowery asked just that question: what are the levels of 'mortality anxiety' among groups still alive? In this article, we revisit this question using similar data, but with some additional variables, and for a non-US case (namely, post-devolution Scottish public policy). In sorting out what factors are associated with anxiety, our analysis seeks to weigh up the existing ecological emphasis on broad shifts in population-level forces (that is, competition) with group-level variables reflecting adaptive changes (that is, identity, uniqueness, changes).

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The Population Ecology of Interest Group Formation: Mobilizing for Gay and Lesbian Rights in the United States, 1950–98

Cited by 116 publications

References 2 publications

Identities, Genres, and Organizational Forms

Identities, Genres, and Organizational Forms

The Changing Patterns of Group Politics in Britain

Interest group survival: Explaining sources of mortality anxiety

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