Organizational Evolution and the Social Ecology of Jobs

The persistence of organizational routines is studied by examining the survival offormalized jobs. Basic models of evolutionary change predict that organizational context, job-founding processes, and whether a is novel affect survival. Negotiated order and social interaction theories predict, however, that the relationship of the jobholder to the organization and to the duties should also affect the persistence offormalized jobs, e.g., the initial incumbent's familiarity to the hiring department and whether the was tailored to a specific person. These predictions are analyzed using partial likelihood analysis of the hazard rate of job death among 347 formalized jobs in a large organization over roughly a sixyear period. Results support most of the predictions. The findings suggest that organizational evolution should be examined through systematic study of organizational routines.