Recently, organizational ecologists have studied the forces of competition and legitimation by analyzing organization's founding and failure rates. At the same time, economists have studied how forces of competition shape organizational size distributions. The proposed research will integrate these two perspectives by determining whether size gives organizations competitive advantages that decrease their chances of failure and increase their changes of growth. The study will also address whether changes in founding and failure rates cause changes in the level of resources available for organizational growth. Finally, the proposed research investigates how historical events have shaped processes of competition and legitimation. Data on banks in Manhattan will be used.
