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THE STRUCTURE OF COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES: AN ORGANIZATIONAL LIFE CYCLE AND POPULATION ECOLOGY EXAMINATION
Abstract
Organizational structure and effectiveness of American four year colleges and universities were examined over a ten year period from 1969 to 1978. Life cycle and population ecology perspectives were employed as conceptual guides. Two components of structure served as primary dependent variables, the schools' changes in administrative intensity and structural reorganization. The organizational effectiveness measure was survival. The main independent variables were school age, size, change in size, affiliation, and changes in the school age population of the school's state. Both population ecology (PE) and life cycle (LC) theories draw on biological theory for a conceptual metaphor. However, the focuses of PE and LC theories differ. The PE perspective is evolutionary, envisioning changes in the structure of organization groups or organization types to evolve in a manner similar to the evolution of plant and animal species. Researchers dealing with LC issues study an organization's developmental cycle, investigating problems inherent to particular phases. Hence, LC research examines one generation of organizations, distilling structural and interpersonal relationships that vary depending on the youth or old age of an organization. The interaction of age, log size, and log changes in the size was chosen to represent LC stages. Findings showed that levels of reorganization and survival were related contingently to the LC indicants. However, age, log size, and log changes in size individually, not interactively, were related to changes in administrative intensity. School affiliation was also related to structural change and survival. Changes in the number of each state's 18 to 24 year olds was chosen as an indicant of an environmental change important to the schools. This variable had little relationship with the schools' changes in administrative intensity. However, this variable did interact with age, log size, log changes in size, and affiliation in the prediction of reorganization and survival. Studies that have failed to assess the main and interactive effect of factors such as age, size, changes in size, or variations in the environment, may have over looked important causes of structural change and effectiveness. LC and PE theories should be further investigated as conceptual guides in the longitudinal analysis of organizations.
Subject Area
Management|School administration
Recommended Citation
BAKER, DOUGLAS DEAN, "THE STRUCTURE OF COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES: AN ORGANIZATIONAL LIFE CYCLE AND POPULATION ECOLOGY EXAMINATION" (1983). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8322482.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8322482