This paper presents the authors' opinion on claims of Petersen and Koput (PK) regarding a problem in the usual interpretation of tests of the theory of density-dependent legitimation and competition as applied to rates of organizational mortality. PK argue that the negative first-order effect of...

This paper describes a dynamic analysis of technological advances among hard disk drive (HDD) manufacturers in the areal density of their products across the history of the industry. The study provides (additional) evidence supporting a view of technological racing with leap-frogging rather than...

We study how tape drive producers respond to the almost continuous emergence of new drive formats across the technology's history. The analysis characterizes the technological formats of tape drives according to their degree of contrast (distinctiveness and visibility) from other formats. High...

In the early transition era in Russia entry barriers for commercial banks were about absent. It resulted in the mushrooming of hundreds of small, poorly-endowed and inexperienced banks. In this paper we address the question whether the claimed benefits of low entry barriers - competition and...

Sociologists and other social scientists have long recognized that certain economic transactions involve more than a simple trade of goods or services for money. A long-standing theme in economic anthropology and sociology emphasizes the symbolic or moral character of certain economic exchanges...

We examine the classic question of how religious diversity in a community affects church membership in a period of high growth and social change. Culling the literature, we develop hypotheses about five possible mechanisms underlying a diversity-growth relation: (1) secularization; (2)...

Using retrospective career life-history data from West Germany, the process by which individuals move into and out of self-employment is studied by separately examining the rates of movement into self-employment and family employment. A general framework of how the self-employment process...