THE DEMOGRAPHIC METABOLISM OF ORGANIZATIONS - INDUSTRY DYNAMICS, TURNOVER, AND TENURE DISTRIBUTIONS

In this paper, I develop and test an ecological model of the anteceden ts of organizational demography, focusing on the aspect of organizatio nal demography that has been linked most strongly to individual and or ganizational outcomes: tenure distributions. I propose that organizati onal ecology, the context within which organizations operate and the d ynamics of that context, influences rates of organizational turnover a nd thereby affects organizations' tenure distributions. Organizational founding, dissolution, and merger drive employees into and out of fir ms, and this ecologically induced mobility will affect organizations' tenure distributions. Moreover, great size and age will buffer organiz ations from the turbulence caused by ecological processes. Analysis of organizations in one industry shows that ecological processes have st rong, direct influences on managerial turnover and systematic indirect influences on the entry and exit of managers and the average tenure a nd tenure dispersions of management groups.