Creating a hybrid organizational form from parental blueprints: The emergence and evolution of knowledge firms

Using a case study of a new biotechnology firm, we examine the formation of a new organizational form as a hybrid emerging from two 'parent' organizat ional forms. We focus on key internal labor processes that are selected fro m existing organizations and replicated in the hybrid form and argue that t his inheritance process strengthens the likelihood of survival of the new f orm. We propose that analyzing the micro-level processes of inheritance con tributes to the understanding of macro-level phenomena of organizational bi rths and deaths, examined by population ecologists.