Dynamics of Niche Width and Resource Partitioning1

By Stanislav D. Dobrev, Tai-Young Kim, Michael T. Hannan. American Journal of Sociology, 2001

302 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article examines the effects of crowding in a market center on rates of change in organizational niche width and on organizational mortality. It proposes that, although firms with wide niches benefit from risk spreading and economies of scale, they are simultaneously exposed to intense competition. An analysis of organizational dynamics in automobile manufacturing firms in France, Germany, and Great Britain shows that competitive pressure not only increases the hazard of disbanding but also prompts organizational transformations that give rise to processes of resource partitioning. Emphasizing the content/process distinction in conceptualizing organizational change, the article finds that the process effect of changes in niche width and position increases mortality hazards. We discuss our findings in light of the processes investigated by the ecological theories of density dependence, resource partitioning, and structural inertia, and point to the theoretical links that help to integrate these theories.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/94e2d9537066a4b51a3b86146733436a966b9fc1

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Citations in the corpus

The Liability of Good Reputation: A Study of Product Recalls in the U.S. Automobile Industry (2006, methodology): “Following Dobrev and his colleagues (Dobrev et al., 2001; Dobrev et al., 2002), we first use the spread of engine capacity (measured in liters) over all car models that an automaker produced in a given year: largest engine capacity minus smallest engine capacity.”
Jacks of All Trades and Masters of None: Audiences' Reactions to Spanning Genres in Feature Film Production (2006, background): “Empirical support for these ideas has been found in a variety of contexts (e.g., Freeman and Hannan, 1983; Hannan and Freeman, 1989; Dobrev, Kim, and Hannan, 2001; Dowell and Swaminathan, 2000).”
Multiple Category Memberships in Markets: An Integrative Theory and Two Empirical Tests (2009, background): “It has been shown empirically that spanning categories has negative consequences: category spanners receive less attention and legitimacy and have lower chances of success and survival (Dobrev, Kim, and Hannan 2001; Zuckerman 1999).”
Two Sides of the Same Coin (2012, background): “Nichewidth theory suggests that organizations need to devote a fixed amount of resources to fitting into any particular niche, and so organizations that span multiple markets have fewer resources to devote to any one (Freeman and Hannan, 1983; Dobrev, Kim, and Hannan, 2001).”
Organizational identities and the hazard of change (2006, background): “…firms (Barnett and Freeman, 1997), formats of radio stations (Greve, 1999), strategies of social movements (Minkoff, 1999), bicycle designs (Dowell and Swaminathan, 2000), and niche width, defined in terms of the range of engine capacities offered, of automobile manufacturers (Dobrev et al., 2001).”
Competitive Crowding and Risk Taking in a Tournament: Evidence from NASCAR Racing (2007, background): “…in some type of resource space, such as a labor market (Sørensen, 1999), a supplier-buyer network (Burt, 1982), a geographic area (Baum and Haveman, 1997; Sorenson and Audia, 2000), a technology space (Podolny, Stuart, and Hannan, 1996), or a product features space (Dobrev, Kim, and Hannan, 2001).”
Learning from Complexity: Effects of Prior Accidents and Incidents on Airlines' Learning (2002, background): “Recent work in organizational ecology has noted the importance of distinguishing size effects from generalism effects (Dobrev, Kim, and Hannan, 2001).”