Adaptation of New Organizations to Legitimacy Shocks: Postbellum Firearms Firms in the U.S. South, 1866–1914

2020 | Organization Science | Citations: 0

Authors: Kasbekar, Chirag

Abstract: In the wake of exogenous institutional change, organizational populations often ... Expand

Abstract: In the wake of exogenous institutional change, organizational populations often experience a legitimacy shock. As a new institutional logic becomes dominant, old symbols and practices are delegitimated and new ones legitimated. Old symbols and practices persist into the postshock period, however, forming an ecology of diverse cohorts and audience schemas, some divergent and others convergent with the new institutional logic. Because new organizations look to their rivals for knowledge of how to cope, I examine how the shifting alignment of a rival cohort to changing audience schemas influences a new organization’s own alignment and, thus, mortality. I propose that density at founding of divergent preshock organizational cohorts early in the postshock period reduces a new organization’s mortality due to an initial endowment effect and then becomes more mortality-increasing over time as maladaptive imprints take over. Density at founding of convergent postshock organizational cohorts has a U-shaped effect on mortality—similar to that caused by a legitimacy vacuum—but this effect emerges after a delay as legitimation processes begin to dominate delegitimation processes. Also, following Red Queen theory, I argue that competitive experience with divergent organizational cohorts increases mortality, but competitive experience with convergent organizational cohorts decreases mortality. To test these arguments, I use the institutional shock of the American Civil War—during which the firearms industry of the U.S. South underwent a period of government-led command-and-control centralization—as a natural experiment. The findings are consistent with the main arguments, though the overall postshock effect of density at founding appears to be dominated by early stage endowment effects, contrary to assumptions. Collapse

Topics: armed conflict accounting geographic information system

Methods: natural experiment Nelson–Aalen estimator statistical hypothesis test hazard function

Theories: endowment effect

When Do ISVs Join a Platform Ecosystem? Evidence from the Enterprise Software Industry

2009 | International Conference on Information Systems | Citations: 23

Authors: Huang, Peng; Ceccagnoli, Marco; Forman, Chris; Wu, D J

Abstract: In the enterprise software industry leading firms usually adopt an open platform ... Expand

Abstract: In the enterprise software industry leading firms usually adopt an open platform strategy and nurture their innovation ecosystem to achieve the shared success of the community. In this study we examine the antecedents of small independent software vendors’ (ISVs’) decision to join a platform ecosystem. Using data of 1208 ISVs’ history of partnering activities with a major enterprise software marker from 1996 to 2004, we find that appropriability strategies based on intellectual property rights and the possession of downstream complementary capabilities by ISVs are positively related to the partnership formation, and ISVs use the two mechanisms as substitutes to prevent expropriation by the platform owner. In addition, we show that greater level of competition in the downstream market between ISVs and the platform owner negatively affects the likelihood of partnering. The results highlight the role of innovation appropriation, downstream complementary capabilities and collaborative competition in the formation of enterprise software platform ecosystems. Collapse

Topics: enterprise information system innovation management digital ecosystem intellectual property software patent

Methods: robustness check hazard function proportional hazards model descriptive statistic longitudinal research