Categorization and Organizational Evolution: A Species Approach to Organizational Form

Abstract

Organizational evolution has become a keystone of wider organizational sciences as it seeks to understand the emergence and sustained presence of organizational forms within the econosystem. Rooted in a population ecology approach to evolutionary theory, the field is presented with the key issue of how to draw the boundaries between organizational forms and thus delimit populations. Despite this centrality, development of a cogent classificatory scheme that meets the demands of both the philosophy of science and social ontology has been elusive. In this paper I integrate the concept of natural kinds taken from philosophy of science with allegory to the ecological niche to formulate an Organizational Species Concept which accommodates these demands. I operationalize this framework through cluster analysis and an abductive process of exploratory science. This is applied to a unique national data set covering an emergent organizational form in food systems, the “food hub”, as a proof of concept. This application carries policy import for goals that center food hubs within initiatives to scale up local and regional food systems. Through this application, I show how determinations about organizational form and underlying populations can be made.