Founding Strategy Research Articles

An abrupt transition in colony founding behaviour in the antMessor pergandei

Transitions in behaviour across a continuous distribution of organisms can provide valuable information on how variation in behaviour is maintained. We used analyses developed for interspecific hybrid zones to examine geographic variation in colony founding strategy in the desert seed-harvester ant,Messor pergandei. Newly mated females initiate new colonies either alone (haplometrosis) or cooperatively with other foundresses (pleometrosis). The incidence of these founding strategies were surveyed across the species’ range and found to occur in geographically distinct regions joined by a narrow transition zone. Foundresses collected from haplometrotic sites were more likely to display aggression and found solitary nests than foundresses from pleometrotic sites, suggesting that geographical variation in metrosis is due to genotypic divergence. Foundresses from transitional sites were generally not aggressive and tended to co-found nests in the laboratory, yet rarely formed associations in the field. Such an abrupt shift in behaviour indicates that variation in colony founding strategy is maintained by selection rather than the result of secondary contact of neutral characters. Level of aggression displays a wider cline than founding strategy and is likely under selection only when accompanied by active strategy preference.

Discontinuance among new firms in retail: The influence of initial resources, strategy, and gender

Women-owned businesses represent one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. economy. Their rate has increased more than six-fold since 1970. Despite this growth rate, the number of firms owned by women still lags behind that of men, and the sales and income of women-owned firms are significantly lower than those of men-owned firms. The discrepancy between the number of businesses owned by women and men and their economic success has been a popular theme among researchers. Some have suggested that performance differentials result from disparate structural positions women and men occupy in work and society, whereas others attribute the differences to deep rooted interpersonal orientations. This study examines whether the performance differences can be explained by variations in initial resources and founding strategy. We test whether women have fewer start-up resources, and if they do, whether they can compensate for these deficiencies through their founding strategy. Recent work in social psychology argues that strategic choice is shaped by experiences to which individuals have been subjected, and that women and men have fundamentally different socialization experiences. We test the assumption that if the strategy that women-owners adopt exploits the unique capabilities they derive from their socialization, they can improve the performance of their firms and ward off discontinuance. We examine the discontinuance pattern of 203 new firms in the retail industry. This industry was selected because women entrepreneurs often choose to operate in this industry, giving us a basis for comparing women-owned and men-owned firms. We classify the firms into six strategy archetypes. The arche-types range from a broad focus where founders emphasize multiple strategic foci simultaneously to narrowly targeted differentiation strategies. We assume that the experiential base of women entrepreneurs limits their successfully executing pricing strategies. We hypothesize that women-led firms decrease the odds of discontinuing by adopting one of two strategy types: (1) narrow differentiation strategies that seek to satisfy a narrow segment of the market and that do not rely on “pricing,” or (2) broad “generalists” strategies that emphasize service and quality but not pricing, and take advantage of women's capability for handling multiple stakeholders simultaneously. The results offer support for using an integrative model to explain the performance of women-owned firms. Women-owned firms have higher odds of discontinuing than men-owned firms, and women appear to have fewer resources to start their businesses. Women owners were less likely to have instrumental experience from working in the retail industry and start their businesses on a smaller scale then men but were no less likely then their male counterparts to have access to credit from formal financial institutions, or to be disadvantaged by starting fewer other new businesses. Despite some apparent situational disadvantage, resource deficiencies do not appear to affect the odds of women-owned businesses discontinuing as much as they do men-owned initiatives. The findings indicate support for the supposition that women owners can use founding strategy to decrease the odds of discontinuing business. A broad generalists strategy that represents a multi-focused approach was found to benefit women-owned businesses most. Overall, the results suggest that men use prior business experience and human capital to affect the survival status of their businesses. Women appear to find strategic choice more beneficial. Future research is recommended to further elaborate the integrative model. Special attention should be given to developing alternatives to measures traditionally used in gender research. Many researchers charge that those typically used reflect male derived measures. Similarly, greater attention should be given to understanding why the scale of women-owned businesses at start-up is substantially smaller than that of men, since scale has been shown to be related to subsequent growth and survival.

Evolution of Life History Strategies in Ants: Variation in Queen Number and Mode of Colony Founding

Most theoretical models for the evolution of polygyny in ants assume a stable population. Here, we discuss the evolution of life history strategies with perennial life cycles, overlapping generations, and fluctuating populations. We assume two alternative strategies, i.e., monogyny = independent founding strategy (in which the survival rate of foundress queens is low but fecundity of individual queens is high), and polygyny = dependent founding strategy (in which the initial survival rate of queens is high, but queens have low fecundity and short longevity). Adopting the intrinsic rate of natural increase (r) as the fitness measurement, we compare the two strategies under various ranges of life history parameters. Our model suggests that a higher survival rate of queens may compensate for a low fecundity of queens adopting the dependent founding strategy. Since dependent foundresses can skip over the non-sexual producing founding and ergonomic stages, they can quickly initiate sexual production and gain a higher r. This implies that dependent founding, which may result in secondary polygyny, tends to be an r strategist. This early reproduction effect has not been explicitly dealt with in previous discussions of polygyny, because they have omitted population demography. We predict that dependent founding (or polygyny) would be more common in open areas where ant populations might suffer from random density independent population fluctuation than in forests where density dependent regulations could stabilize ant populations. A recent empirical data-set from Okinawa Island actually suggested that polygyny is more common in open areas than in forests. Some other published data that enabled intraspecific comparison also supported our prediction.

Invisible man and invisible women: the sex/race analogy of the 1970s 1

Abstract Contemporary feminists take a dismissive attitude toward the sex/race analogy of the 1970s. However flawed as an analysis of sex, race, and the relations between them, not least for its erasure of women of color, the sex/race analogy was a founding rhetorical strategy of the women's Liberation Movement. A history of the analogy is traced, focusing on its use as a legitimating strategy for the emergent women's Liberation Movement, as well as a literary critical/historical aspect of its use in feminist fictional re-visionings of Invisible Man. Concluding remarks examine ways the analogy continues to function in contemporary feminist fiction, most notably with a shift in the meaning of ‘sex’ from sex as gender to ‘sex’ as sexuality, with specific attention to the analogy's use in theory by women of color

An analysis of the administrative profiles of the first two mass production systems in America

In 1790, Samuel Slater began operating America's first factory using a business format that became known as the Rhode Island system. Twenty-four years later, Francis Cabot Lowell created a new breed of integrated factory, the Waltham system. This paper examines how these systems developed distinctly different strategic profiles. Findings suggest that leader background, backdrop of founding, organizational inertia, and market strategy led most significantly to their differences.

Founding strategy and performance: A comparison of high and low growth high tech firms : H.R. Feeser and G.E. Willard, Strategic Management Journal (February 1990), pp. 87–98

Founding strategy and performance: A comparison of high and low growth high tech firms : H.R. Feeser and G.E. Willard, Strategic Management Journal (February 1990), pp. 87–98

Founding strategy and performance: A comparison of high and low growth high tech firms

AbstractSome firms grow very rapidly; others much more slowly. Potential explanations for differences in performance levels between high growth firms and low growth firms operating in the same industry are sought by comparing the firms' founding strategies. Results indicate that founding strategies of high and low growth firms differ systematically among the firms studied.