Logics of Organization Theory: Audiences, Codes, and Ecologies

Building theories of organizations is challenging: theories are partial and "folk" categories are fuzzy. The commonly used tools - first-order logic and its foundational set theory - are ill-suited for handling these complications. Here, three leading authorities rethink organization theory. "Logics of Organization Theory" sets forth and applies a new language for theory building based on a nonmonotonic logic and fuzzy set theory. In doing so, not only does it mark a major advance in organizational theory, but it also draws lessons for theory building elsewhere in the social sciences. Organizational research typically analyzes organizations in categories such as "bank," "hospital," or "university."These categories have been treated as crisp analytical constructs designed by researchers. But sociologists increasingly view categories as constructed by audiences. This book builds on cognitive psychology and anthropology to develop an audience-based theory of organizational categories. It applies this framework and the new language of theory building to organizational ecology. It reconstructs and integrates four central theory fragments, and in so doing reveals unexpected connections and new insights.

Table of Contents:
Preface xi Chapter 1: Language Matters 1 1.1 Languages for Theory Building 1 1.2 Using Dynamic Logic 5 1.3 Partial Memberships: Fuzziness 12 1.4 Organizational Ecology 18 1.5 Unification Projects 21 PART 1. AUDIENCES, PRODUCERS, AND CODES 27 Chapter 2: Clusters and Labels 29 2.1 Seeds for Categories and Forms 32 2.2 Domains 34 2.3 Similarity 37 2.4 Similarity Clusters 41 2.5 Labels 47 2.6 Extensional Consensus 52 2.7 Complex Labels 56 Chapter 3: Types and Categories 59 3.1 Schemata 60 3.2 Types 65 3.3 Intensional Semantic Consensus 67 3.4 Categories 69 3.5 Intrinsic Appeal and Category Valence 71 Chapter 4: Forms and Populations 78 4.1 Test Codes and Defaults 79 4.2 Taken-for-Grantedness 82 4.3 Legitimation and Forms 84 4.4 Populations 85 4.5 Density Dependence Revisited 89 4.6 Delegitimation 96 Chapter 5: Identity and Audience 100 5.1 Identity As Default 101 5.2 Multiple Category Memberships 107 5.3 Code Clash 109 5.4 Identities and Populations 110 5.5 Structure of the Audience 111 PART 2. NONMONOTONIC REASONING: AGE DEPENDENCE 121 Chapter 6: A Nonmonotonic Logic 123 6.1 Beyond First-Order Logic 124 6.2 Generalizations 127 6.3 Nonmonotonic Reasoning 130 6.4 A Precis of the Formal Approach 133 6.5 Chaining Probabilistic Arguments 142 6.6 Closest-Possible-Worlds Construction 143 6.7 Falsification 145 Chapter 7: Integrating Theories of Age Dependence 150 7.1 Capability and Endowment 152 7.2 First Unification Attempt 157 7.3 Obsolescence 161 7.4 Second Unification Attempt 163 PART 3. ECOLOGICAL NICHES 169 Chapter 8: Niches and Audiences 171 8.1 Tastes, Positions, and Offerings 174 8.2 Category Niche 177 8.3 Organizational Niche 178 8.4 Fundamental Niche 183 8.5 Implications of Category Membership 186 8.6 Metric Audience Space 187 Chapter 9: Niches and Competitors 191 9.1 Fitness 191 9.2 Realized Niche 193 9.3 Niche Overlap 194 9.4 Niche Width Revisited 198 9.5 Convexity of the Niche 203 9.6 Environmental Change 206 Chapter 10: Resource Partitioning 209 10.1 Scale Advantage 210 10.2 Market Center 214 10.3 Market Segments and Crowding 215 10.4 Dynamics of Partitioning 220 10.5 Implications of Category Membership 226 PART 4. ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE 229 Chapter 11: Cascading Change 231 11.1 Identity and Inertia 232 11.2 Organizational Architecture 235 11.3 Cascades 236 11.4 Architecture and Cascades 239 11.5 Intricacy and Viscosity 246 11.6 Missed Opportunities 248 11.7 Change and Mortality 253 Chapter 12: Opacity and Asperity 256 12.1 Limited Foresight: Opacity 256 12.2 Cultural Opposition: Asperity 261 12.3 Opacity, Asperity, and Reorganization 265 12.4 Change and Mortality 268 Chapter 13: Niche Expansion 271 13.1 Expanded Engagement 271 13.2 Architectural and Cultural Context 276 13.3 Age and Asperity 278 13.4 Distant Expansion 279 13.5 Expansion and Convexity 281 Chapter 14: Conclusions 286 14.1 Theoretical Unification 287 14.2 Common Conceptual Core 289 14.3 Inconsistencies Resolved 291 14.4 Theoretical Progress 293 14.5 Empirical Implications 298 Appendix A. Glossary of Theoretical Terms 305 Appendix B. Glossary of Symbols 313 Appendix C. Some Elementary First-Order Logic 321 Appendix D. Notation for Monotonic Functions 331 Appendix E. The Modal Language of Codes 334 Bibliography 339 Index 355

About the Author :
Michael T. Hannan is the Stratacom Professor of Management in the Graduate School of Business and professor of sociology at Stanford University. Laszlo Polos is professor of organization theory at the Durham Business School in the United Kingdom. Glenn R. Carroll is the Laurence W. Lane Professor of Organizations in the Graduate School of Business and (by courtesy) professor of sociology at Stanford.

Review :
The book will appeal to different audiences, making the book itself an interesting case study for the theory developed in it. The broader message of the book, developing a new set of tools that aid theorizing in sociology and the administrative sciences, will appeal to those interested in social science methodology. But first and foremost, it is of interest to researchers working on organization theory in general and on organizational ecology in particular. It goes substantially beyond earlier formalizations of organizational ecology published in the last decade, with a radical shift in focus toward the whole process of theory building. -- Administrative Science Quarterly Logics of Organizational Theory deserves to be read and discussed by everyone interested in organizations and in the method of developing sociological theory. -- Michele Lamont, American Journal of Sociology