A Time to Grow and a Time to Die: Growth and Mortality of Credit Unions in New York City, 1914–1990

One vision of organizational evolution suggests that old and large organizations become increasingly dominant over their environment. A second suggests that as organizations age they become less able to respond to new challenges. In this article the authors investigate which of these visions best characterizes the evolution of state-chartered credit unions in New York City from 1914 through 1990 by analyzing the effects of organizational age, size, and population density on rates of organizational failure and growth. The authors find evidence that old and small institutions are more likely to fail, while young and small organizations have the highest growth rates.