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The aim of this paper is to propose an integrative framework of organizational decline on the firm‐level.

In recent years, there has been a growing number of contributions to the research field of organizational decline from diverse theoretical perspectives and different levels of analysis. In this paper, an integrative framework of organizational decline on the firm‐level is proposed that relies on a process perspective, combining insights from organizational ecology, path dependence and the resource‐based view.

Different theoretical perspectives are used to explore various aspects of the problem of organizational decline. A theoretical framework as a theoretical perspective is developed to guide research and to interconnect diverse theoretical findings. Based on the suggested framework, two archetypes are distinguished which lead an organization to insolvency: malabsorptive incompetence and maladapted competencies.

The proposed framework allows the capture of the dynamic process of organizational decline and the identification of the triggers driving organizational decline.

The purpose of this paper is to adapt concepts from resiliency theory to understand the conditions under which social enterprises may remain true to form and purpose or are likely to change their character. This leads us to consider issues of governance, economic incentives associated with different organizational forms of social enterprise and the effects of the financial environment, the role of organizational slack and the influence of organizational leadership on the dynamics of social enterprises. Three case studies of organizations in the USA are analyzed to illustrate the application of resiliency theory to the stability of social enterprises. The fact that all forms of social enterprise must reconcile the tensions of social purpose and market raises important questions about the dynamics of these enterprises.

Theory and case study analysis.

Governance, financial incentive structure, organizational slack and leadership influence the stability of social enterprises.

First application of resiliency theory to the analysis of social enterprise stability.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a more detailed understanding of how embedding in different social networks relates to different types of action that individuals choose in the context of organizational closures, downsizing or relocations. To develop such insights, this paper focuses on three particular types of social networks, namely, intra-organizational; external professional and local community networks. These three types of networks have been frequently related to different types of action in the context of closures and relocations.

This is a conceptual paper. The authors develop the argument by integrating relevant recent literature on the salience related to embedding in different types of social networks, with a particular focus on responses to organizational closure or relocation.

The authors argue that at times of industrial decline and closure: embeddedness in intra-organizational networks can favor collective direct action; embeddedness in professional networks is likely to favor individual direct action and embeddedness in community networks can lead to individual indirect action. The authors then add nuance to the argument by considering a range of complicating factors that can constrain or enable the course (s) of action favored by particular combinations of network influences.

On a theoretical level, this paper adds to understandings of the role of network embeddedness in influencing individual and collective responses to such disruptive events; and direct or indirect forms of response. On a practical level, the authors contribute to understandings about how the employment landscape may evolve in regions affected by organizational demise, and how policymakers may study with or through network influences to develop more responsible downsizing approaches.

At the time of its demise in 2001, the Enron Corporation could boast of its comprehensive, state-of-the-art management control and governance systems. Yet these controls were rendered ineffective in the company's last few years. This article identifies the radical change in Enron's corporate culture that took place from the Lay-Kinder era (1986–1996) to the Lay-Skilling era (1997–2001). It argues that this was a major cause of neutralizing these controls, which in turn proved to be a major factor in Enron's fall into bankruptcy. The article draws on Schein's (1993, Legitimating clinical research in the study of organizational culture, Journal of Counselling and Development, 71, 703–708; 1996, 2004) framework of cultural practice to develop our analysis. Thus, it supports Simon's (1990, 1995) urging to more meaningfully include corporate culture in management control research studies. The article contributes to the literature by drawing attention to the rich but untold story of Enron's governance and control and also extends the research linking corporate culture and control systems.

This paper aims to examine Borders response to business model innovation (BMI) by Amazon in the bookselling industry. The case illuminates potential causes for protracted periods of organizational unlearning, explaining why organizational unlearning, although beneficial in many documented cases, can also be insufficient to prevent failure.

Archival data are used to study Borders’s historical evolution from 1995 to its 2011 bankruptcy. Theoretical inferences are drawn from this case to shed light on the process of organizational unlearning.

Borders failed because its top managers were unable to adjust its traditionalist superstore identity to respond in an adequate manner to the changes in their environment. Instead, the company went through protracted phases of weathering the storm, denial and unlearning, resulting in bankruptcy. This extreme case of failure explains why sometimes, organizational unlearning might be insufficient, resulting in organizational demise rather than renewal.

A longitudinal study of an extreme case allows the author to build links between the research on organizational unlearning and the scholarship on organizational identity.

Organizations may survive longer if their top managers engage in the process of organizational identity change in response to BMI in their industry. The article proposes a few actions that organizations might usefully take to react to BMI before it is too late.

Better understanding of failure may enable preventive behavior.

This article explains how organizational identity prevents learning the right things and augments the dangers organizations face during unlearning.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how organisational closure can inform strategic foresight.

The authors draw insights from illustrative cases, i.e. Swissair, Sabena and Cameroon Airlines to illustrate their theoretical analysis.

The study shed light on the effects of internal and external factors in precipitating business closures. The authors established that top executives’ hubris, resistance to change and over-reliance on external consultants are some of precursors to organisational closure.

The analysis of this paper provides a range of strategies that organisations can pursue to learn from other firms’ closure and improve their survivability and chances of future success.

Despite a growing body of literature on strategic foresight and organisational closure, the literature has largely developed in isolation and as such the understanding of the relationship between strategic foresight and organisational closure has remained severely limited. The paper integrates these two streams of research to enrich the understanding of how firms can learn from others to improve their strategic foresight.

An examination of organizational Darwinism – survival of the fittest – via systems theory provides the foundation for a related analysis of the learning organization and the kinds of leaders necessary to pilot organizations through uncertain environments fraught with turbulence. Such environmental changes include the revolutionization of information, fast‐paced technological change, the dissolution of national boundaries and cultural barriers to communication, and changing values.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how legacy organizational identity and death relate to each other and, thereby, contribute to closing the gap in knowledge on organizational identity constructions in times of death.

The paper opted for an exploratory study relying on primary data from in-depth narrative interviews with 20 organizational members of a bank that went bankrupt. The primary data, as well as documents like websites, newspapers, magazines, booklets, minutes, and reports, were complemented by secondary interviews with other members of the financial industry.

The paper finds that members of a dead organization construct a bankruptcy narrative that is also a legacy organizational identity narrative including a legacy organizational identity transformation and several identities that have positive and negative aspects and are conflicting but integrated into a coherent narrative. Furthermore, the paper provides empirical insights on how members of a dead organization draw upon their legacy organizational identity to justify their (lack of) past interpretations and responses to an unfolding bankruptcy. Finally, it provides empirical evidence on ways that legacy organizational identity from a dead organization play a substantial role in a living organization.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability.

The paper holds insight that can help practitioners understand members of a dying organization – including the ways they come to form and perform in a new organizational context; an understanding that is a prerequisite for helping and supporting these members in coming to perform satisfyingly in the new organization.

This paper addresses an apparent gap in the literature on identity and death; exploring identity narratives in a bankrupted bank, the paper considers constructions of legacy organizational identities in times of disruptive death.

The literature of organizational change hints that adaptability and inertia not only counterbalance but also reinforce each other, and the inertia-adaptability balance over time is nonlinear. The author aims to address this view more clearly by presenting a multi-stage conceptual model that delineates how adaptability and inertia take turns to override each other. In addition, data collected from over 400 nonprofit organizations within the USA were used to test this model.

This study uses polynomial regression to examine the multi-stage conceptual model. More precisely, it tests how organizational age influences an organization's innovativeness, managerial risk aversion, and red tape.

The findings support the multi-stage conceptual model. The results imply that organizational ecology and rational adaptation are mutually compatible perspectives in explaining organizational age dynamics.

This study introduces a multi-stage model that more clearly examines how adaptability and inertia counterbalance and reinforce over time. More importantly, the author empirically examines the nonlinear organizational age dynamics using quantitative data.