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One area in which strategy and organizational ecology converge is organizational change. This essay weaves together salient themes in my (and my co-authors’) various writings on organizational change, and is anchored in the research literature of the last twenty years. Among other ideas developed here, I point out that there is now a convergence of agendas in strategy and ecology, with an important role being played by intraorganizational ecology. I develop the distinction between strong and weak selection approaches to organizational ecology. While the strong selection view does not find empirical support, there is stronger support for the weak selection view. I lay out some key features of an emerging evolutionary synthesis for the study of strategy and organization, and develop an evolutionary approach to organizational change.

As I have reflected upon the last thirty years, since it was precisely thirty years ago that I started as a student at Stanford, I have wondered if there is an overall theme to how my professional career has unfolded and the role Stanford played in it. I believe Albert Bandura's (1982) paper, The Psychology of Chance Encounters and Life Paths, provides a good descriptive framework to work with. I am persuaded that at various points of time as I stood at the proverbial fork in the road, due to one chance factor or another, my decision was tipped one way. This is not to suggest that my career has been a sequence of random events; quite the contrary. While the specific fortuitous events occurred largely outside my control, my responses to them were quite systematic; some fortuitous events had lasting influence, and some even changed my life trajectory. But, what I am struck by, ex post, is that in 1973, as I was just finishing my undergraduate education in India, the ex ante probability of my ending up some years later as a professor at an Ivy League university was essentially zero. Yet, this did eventually happen.

Analysis of organizational decline has become central to the study of economy and society. Further advances in this area may fail however, because two major literatures on the topic remain disintegrated and because both lack a sophisticated account of how social structure and interdependencies among organizations affect decline. This paper develops a perspective which tries to overcome these problems. The perspective explains decline through an understanding of how social ties and resource dependencies among firms affect market structure and the resulting behavior of firms within it. Evidence is furnished that supports the assumptions of the perspective and provides a basis for specifying propositions about the effect of network structure on organizational survival. I conclude by discussing the perspective’s implications for organizational theory and economic sociology.

Analysis of organizational decline has become central to the study of economy and society. Further advances in this area may fail however, because two major literatures on the topic remain disintegrated and because both lack a sophisticated account of how social structure and interdependencies among organizations affect decline. This paper develops a perspective which tries to overcome these problems. The perspective explains decline through an understanding of how social ties and resource dependencies among firms affect market structure and the resulting behavior of firms within it. Evidence is furnished that supports the assumptions of the perspective and provides a basis for specifying propositions about the effect of network structure on organizational survival. I conclude by discussing the perspective's implications for organizational theory and economic sociology.

The purpose of this paper is to present an analytical study on an unsteady magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) boundary layer flow of a rotating viscoelastic fluid over an infinite vertical porous plate embedded in a uniform porous medium with oscillating free-stream taking Hall and ion-slip currents into account. The unsteady MHD flow in the rotating fluid system is generated due to the buoyancy forces arising from temperature and concentration differences in the field of gravity and oscillatory movement of the free-stream.

The resulting partial differential equations governing the fluid motion are solved analytically using the regular perturbation method by assuming a very small viscoelastic parameter. In order to note the influences of various system parameters and to discuss the important flow features, the numerical results for fluid velocity, temperature and species concentration are computed and depicted graphically vs boundary layer parameter whereas skin friction, Nusselt number and Sherwood number at the plate are computed and presented in tabular form.

An interesting observation is recorded that there occurs a reversal flow in the secondary flow direction due to the movement of the free stream. It is also noted that a decrease in the suction parameter gives a rise in momentum, thermal and concentration boundary layer thicknesses.

Very little research work is reported in the literature on non-Newtonian fluid dynamics where unsteady flow in the system arises due to time-dependent movement of the plate. The motive of the present analytical study is to analyse the influences of Hall and ion-slip currents on unsteady MHD natural convection flow of a rotating viscoelastic fluid (non-Newtonian fluid) over an infinite vertical porous plate embedded in a uniform porous medium with oscillating free-stream.

In the present investigation, hydromagnetic boundary layer flow of Walters’-B fluid over a vertical porous surface implanted in a porous material under the action of a strong external applied magnetic field and rotation is presented. In several industrial applications, the external applied magnetic field is strong enough to produce Hall and ion-slip currents. Thus, the influence of Hall and ion-slip currents is also considered in this analysis. The flow through configuration is generated because of time varying motion of the free-stream and buoyancy action.

Regular perturbation scheme is used to obtain the solution of the system of coupled partial differential equations representing the mathematical model of the problem. Numerical computation has been performed to notice the change in flow behavior and the numerical results for velocity field, temperature field, species concentration, skin friction, rate of heat and mass transfer are presented through graphs and tables.

An important fact noticed that the exponential time varying motion of the free-stream induces reverse flow in the direction perpendicular to the main flow. Rising values of the strength of the applied magnetic field give increment in the fluid velocity in the neighbourhood of the vertical surface, this may cause because of the exponential motion of the free-stream. The behaviour of the Darcian drag force is similar as magnetic field on fluid flow.

In literature, very less research works are available on Walters’-B fluid where unsteadiness in the system occurs because of time varying motion of the free-stream. In this paper, the authors have made an attempt to study the action of Hall and ion-slip currents, rotation and external applied magnetic field on hydromagnetic boundary layer flow of Walters’-B fluid over a vertical surface implanted in a porous material.

The manufacturing industry is presently experiencing technological disruption on a global scale. Consequently, to tackle such disruption, firms are identifying a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) scenario and seeking ways to counter it. Accordingly, this paper aims to investigate the employee performance through assessing organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) among the shop floor employees of the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry where a high-performance work system (HPWS) has been implemented.

A descriptive research design was used in the study, and 395 shop floor employees working in leading multinational firms, with a minimum global turnover of US$1bn, were interviewed. These manufacturing firms were located in three industrial clusters in the northern part of India.

The results indicate that HPWS influences OCB. Most of the dimensions of HPWS and OCB were found to be positively associated. The findings also disprove the labour process theory in the context of the study.

The findings report a broad view of the relationship between HPWS and OCB in the Indian manufacturing context. The study offers the practical insights that HPWS is a universally accepted framework and that organizations should focus on the effective implementation of HPWS in a VUCA scenario, which is in line with past studies. The study also provides future directions for research.

This paper has established the relationship between HPWS and OCB in the manufacturing sector, especially for shop floor employees.