The last theory that we covered in the course is called organizational ecology. And it applied when we thought again about the level of analysis as an entire population. And this was quite similar to an organizational field that [INAUDIBLE] institutional theory called or identified. Here we have this population and it shifts to the notion of the population. Because now we're following a metaphor of natural selection, and Darwinism of sorts for firms. So, and here the concern is not with why firms all look the same like institutional theory was concerned with. But why they vary and some survive and die. And so it's more about this process of inter firm competition and environmental selection. So, it's a distinct kind of theory and that it's environmentally determined, deterministic. And it's great for thinking about whether my firm would fit and what kind of firm I would need to start. It's for forecasting or predicting whether it's feasible to move into this new niche and whether your firm would survive. Now the summary or basic argument here is that the environment's changing. And you have populations of organizations that form niches of isomorphic fitting organizations. And these sets of organizations fit the environment or have equilibrium in the environment temporarily. Now, think of it this way as firms that vary, they alter certain characteristics over time and they out compete one another within this ecosystem. And the ones that fit that ecosystem better get selected and reproduce. They fill up the niche until they reach carrying capacity. And then any new ones can't survive because there's not enough room, it's too dense. So we have this notion of an ecosystem with a variety of species, some that outcompete others, that proliferate. And that over time this doesn't stay static. But over a long period of time it will eventually turn over into a new sub-species that maybe outperforms the others. Now the dominant pattern of inference again here is that it's competition. It's that firms vary, there's this kind of inertia to firm structure that they don't adapt very well. And what happens is that the environment selects a particular structure to survive or die. So that becomes the primary means of it's selection. It's not about adaptation, and, because of this, you have species competing within a niche, according to the form they practice. And over time, this can change, because the environment as a niche changes as well as do the forms of those firms within it. And some of them become more fit. So, as a manager, when you look at this change, adaptation of your firm is pretty hard. It's kind of disconcerting. So the main effort becomes being competitively isomorphic in a niche. It's to look like the other firms that are doing well in that niche. And to think about whether your firm has a slight adaptation or a mutation actually, that you founded that would outperform the other. And so you succeed by fitting the niche, what the environment in that ecosystem needs. And what population you're in, the composition of it, whether it's reached a carrying capacity or not. And what change is occurring, and then whether it makes sense to adopt some kind of generalist strategy of diversifying. Whether your firm is a large multi faceted firm, or whether it's a specialized kind of niche. So you think about the structure of the niche, whether it allows for partitioning into the different segments. Where you can be a specialist like a microbrewery or whether it's better to be a generalist. It depends on whether that niche is going through a transformation of a great turnover or whether it's stable. All of those features of the niche in the ecosystems are quite deterministic in terms of firm survival. And in terms of selecting a kind of organizational form that's considered fit. So, you got ten theories this quarter, that's a lot of theories. And for any particular case, it's likely we'll want to apply several of these theories. So we start to come to this point where we ask, are there ways we can combine our application of the theories? And one thing I think what helps is to consider how they vary. And so some of these theories if we reflect on them, appear to be more idealistic models than realistic models or descriptive models. So they may be better suited to planning than implementation. Similarly some of the theories are more limited in scope. They focus on decision moments and administration of them. While others concern the organizational context or environmental context or the conditions of decisions. Now some of the theories also presume an internal capacity to change and adapt, that we can change technological core in the structure. While others think that's really hard, that they're full of inertia and there's this deterministic matching efforts, like population ecology or organization ecology. So, of this theories focus internally, they focus on the internal whereas others go out in the environment like we said in terms of an open system. And then finally, we have some theories that concern themselves with the deep structure. The cultural elements of organizations and the organizational environments. While others are more concerned with surface structures of resource relations or networks of association. So, they vary tremendously in terms of what they focus on. And depending on any particular case, depending if we want to focus on planning, whether we want to focus on a decision with any context. We can select certain theories in combination to afford a more robust or elaborate characterization of any particular case. Now, of course, as a manager you want to think about distinct narratives or ways in which you can frame or characterize the combination of multiple theories. And one way is in terms of staging. So, some of these theories can be used in the planning and then others in implementation. Right? So the rational choice could be for plans and then the implementation could be, say, org process. Another way is to think about them is embedded theories. Where within the context of a macro context we have this micro processorial decision models. Third way of thinking about it is more of a differentiated kind of a perspective. That some of these theories, we would regard each case as having certain dimensions like culture and surface structure. And so we would want to look at culture and sense making processes within this firm or this case, as well as resource and efficiency concerns in another. Yet, another kind of view is that these theories could be applied differently, depending on the industry. So that in some cases, or some industries, like finance, we have these centralized structures with very clear information in its representation as numeric and quantitative. That would make it more useful and pertinent to a rational actor model. In another industry like a knowledge production industry where a lot of these things are uncertain and ambiguous, where culture are maybe more important than beliefs and norms. Different sets of organization are maybe even more salient than say a rational actor models. Political systems or ones with high cost, momentary decisions of inconsistent preferences could also pertain to certain theories over others. And again political kinds of a policy making context as opposed to policy implementation or both. It's hard to say, depending on what you're studying or analyzing or managing as the case may be. But political context probably require a distinct organizational theories yet again. And then finally we have bureaucracies. And quite a few of you did mentioned that you work in governmental bureaucracies that are quite stable, staid and hard to change. And there again I think these kind of organizational process models and theories of that sort. Sill have great salience and relevance to what you're observing and how to manage it. So I think a variety of these theories could be combined or seen as matching certain kinds of industry. We could also approach them as being differentiated in terms of what we think are the salient dimensions of organizing culture and structure. We can embed these theories in ways that are both macro micro or even a decision in context, same thing right? And then finally that we have this staged view as to where an organizational phenomena can proceed. So in the planning to the implementation could require a vastly different theories for you as an analyst and manager. And I think that these are all viable narratives by which you could combine multiple theories, and still retain some larger sense to it. So, it's not just a mosaic, here you have an actual sensible narrative. That the combination follows and can be reflected upon as being more suited to the case or not. So, I hope these kinds of multiple combination theories or narratives for them, are a value to you in becoming more of a master carpenter. As opposed to just viewing your screwdriver only suitable for one thing. That you start to see the screwdriver in relationship to the hammer in relationship to the saw as being relevant to certain kinds of projects. Just like you would all these theories that some of them will be relevant to certain kinds of firms or certain kinds of narratives. That you're trying to portray and understand for organizational phenomena. So now we come to the final part of the course where I say thank you and goodbye. And I don't want it to be a sad one. I'm hoping that you've enjoyed the journey, and I'm hoping that you learned a great deal. I know that my teaching assistants and I have learned a tremendous amount from this experience, and from our interactions with you. And it's been invaluable, I've learned a great deal. And I walked into this hoping to do such. And hopefully we've provided you with some material, and resources that are a value to you. There are a few people that I want to than. And in particular I want to thank most of all my teaching assistants Charlie Gomez, Emilie Snider, and Dan Newark. They've put in many hours for free, and I just couldn't ask for a better team of individuals to help me present this. So, if anything worked well, please give them credit. And then, I also want to thank Coursera and Relly, who is at Coursera has been helping us throughout quite a bit of this. Without her support and Coursera's, we wouldn't be able to implement a lot of these procedures. That we're trying to test out and figure out how to improve online learning, so it more closely resembles a real high quality class. With a lot of substantive material, and feedback for you in terms of writing and the like. And then last I want to thank Stanford and the Vice Provost of Online Learning and Jane Manning for being supportive as well. Of giving us access to places like the sound booth and helping us with putting on the screen side chats and on and on it goes. There's so many people that if anything went right they deserve credit, for the things that didn't go right, I apologize. We did take your comments seriously, we are going to improve on all those, and they're invaluable feedback. You've always been constructive, you've always been kind about things and patient with us in trying to afford this material to you. And we're very grateful and hopefully if you didn't get to acquire a certificate this year, we'll be able to afford this again in the fall of 2013. With a variety of improvements and a much smoother presentation that will be of interest to you and many others out there. So, I hope this isn't goodbye. I hope it's a thank you and until the next course or the next time. And if any of you were ever at Stanford and I'm not in a middle of a course like this, I would love to sit down and meet with you and say hello. So, thank you.
