Back to inertia: Theoretical implications of alternative styles of logicalformalization

This article applies two new criteria, desirability and faithfulness, to ev aluate Peli et al.'s (1994) formalization of Hannan and Freeman's structura l inertia argument (1984, 1989). We conclude that this formalization fails to meet these criteria. We argue that part of the rational reconstruction o n which this formalization builds does not reflect well the substantive arg ument in translating the natural language theory into logic. We propose two alternative formalizations that meet both of these criteria. Moreover, bot h derive the inertia theorem from much weaker, so much less constraining, p remises. While both new formalizations draw information only from the origi nal statement of the inertia theory, they reflect two different interpretat ions of inertia accumulation. The two new formalizations are compatible with some recent theory extension s in organizational ecology. However, they lead to substantially different consequences when additional sociological considerations are added to their premise sets. The interplay between logical formalization and sociological content is highlighted using the example of Stinchcombe's (1965) liability -of-newness theorem. Even modest extensions of the proposed models lead to contrary implications about the age dependence in organizational mortality rates. Even "faithful" logical formalizations of arguments ordinarily invol ve implicit theory building.