Michael T. Hannan: Ecology

Michael T. Hannan is US-American sociologist of Stanford University. Explore interesting quotes on ecology.
Michael T. Hannan: 24   quotes 0   likes

“The existing literature usually stresses the capacity of organizations to learn about and adapt to uncertain, changing environments. We think this emphasis is misplaced. The most important issues about the applicability of evolutionary-ecological theories to organizations concern the timing of changes. Learning and adjusting structure enhance the chance of survival only if the speed of response is commensurate with the temporal patterns of relevant environments.”

Michael T. Hannan

Source: Organizational ecology, 1989, p. 70; About structural inertia.

Literature , Thinking , Learning , Change

“The concept of "niche," initially borrowed by biologists from early social science, plays a central role in ecological theory… The niche… consists of all those combinations of resource levels at which the population can survive and reproduce itself.”

Michael T. Hannan

Source: "The Population Ecology of Organizations," 1977, p. 946

Science

“We argue that in order to deal with the various inertial pressures the adaptation perspective must be supplemented with a selection orientation. We consider first two broad issues that are preliminary to ecological modelling. The first concerns appropriate units of analysis. Typical analyses of the relation of organizations to environments take the point of view of a single organization facing an environment.”

Michael T. Hannan

Source: "The Population Ecology of Organizations," 1977, p. 933

“Hannan and Freeman examine the ecology of organizations by exploring the competition for resources and by trying to account for rates of entry and exit and for the diversity of organizational forms. They show that the destinies of organizations are determined more by impersonal forces than by the intervention of individuals by the intervention of individuals.”

Michael T. Hannan

Michael T. Hannan and John H. Freeman. Organizational ecology. Harvard University Press, 1993; Abstract.

“A population ecology perspective on organization-environment relations is proposed as an alternative to the dominant adaptation perspective. The strength of inertial pressures on organizational structure suggests the application of models that depend on competition and selection in populations of organizations. Several such models, as well as issues arising in attempts to apply them to the organization-environment problem, are discussed.”

Michael T. Hannan

Source: "The Population Ecology of Organizations," 1977, p. 929; Article abstract

Problem , Dependency