Is Population Ecology a Useful Paradigm for the Study of Organizations?

Population ecology tries to apply models, theories, and methods developed for the study of plant and animal populations to organizations. As a current paradigm, it is growing in popularity. But the difficulties sociologists have in adapting its concepts to organizations, in extending the theory to apply to social phenomena, and in subjecting it to empirical tests all lead to the conclusion that it is not useful for the study of organizations. In addition, the competition model that is at its center has a very narrow application to organizations.