Creating New Technology‐based Organizations: A System Dynamics Model

While the study of mature organizations and bureaucracies is well established, there has been comparatively little examination of the creation and development of new organizations. What work has been done is highly fragmented, primarily by discipline, and concentrates on different facets of a complex phenomenon. Following a literature review and classification this article attempts a conceptual integration; it proposes a system dynamics model for the creation and development of one particular organizational type: new, technology based organizations. Drawing upon concepts from ecology, the central concept of the model is that new venture creation takes place within, and is thus dependent upon, a larger context of “ecosystem” consisting of environmental resources (technical expertise, capital, services) and existing inhabitants (individuals, firms, and institutions). Intraorganizational factors are also discussed including a set of proposed measures for new venture success. The article closes with some suggestions for the direction of future research and describes a research project the authors have recently begun.