Aging, Obsolescence, and Organizational Innovation
Abstract
This paper investigates the relationship between organizational aging and innovation processes to illuminate the dynamics of high-technology industries, as well to resolve debates in organizational theory about the effects of aging on organizational functioning. We test hypotheses based on two seemingly contradictory consequences of aging for organizational innovation: that aging is associated with increases in firms' rates of innovation and that the difficulties of keeping pace with incessant external developments causes firms' innovative outputs to become obsolete relative to the most current environmental demands. These seemingly contradictory outcomes are intimately related and reflect inherent tradeoffs in organizational learning and innovation processes. Multiple longitudinal analyses of the relationship between firm age and patenting behavior in the semiconductor and biotechnology industries lend support to these arguments.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Especially when environmental dynamism is high and contextual change is fundamental and discontinuous, long-jump reorientations that require entirely novel solutions often prove more beneficial for a firm's competitive advantage than local adaptations from within the current set of available actions.
“Especially when environmental dynamism is high and contextual change is fundamental and discontinuous, long-jump reorientations that require entirely novel solutions often prove more beneficial for a firm's competitive advantage than local adaptations from within the current set of available actions”
From On the contingent value of dynamic capabilities for competitive advantage: The nonlinear moderating effect of environmental dynamism (2014) · cites this paper as Sørensen and Stuart, 2000
Given that a proven response to an identified problem exists in organizational memory, experimentation with alternatives becomes less attractive, crowding out explorative activities that would go beyond the beaten track.
“Given that a proven response to an identified problem exists in organizational memory, experimentation with alternatives becomes less attractive, crowding out explorative activities that would go beyond the beaten track (Levinthal, 1991;Levinthal and Myatt, 1994;Sørensen and Stuart, 2000).”
From On the contingent value of dynamic capabilities for competitive advantage: The nonlinear moderating effect of environmental dynamism (2014) · cites this paper as Sørensen and Stuart, 2000
Firms with a strong established new product development capability tend to develop a preference for pursuing incremental product improvements along existing trajectories rather than exploring radically different innovations.
“Firms with a strong established new product development capability tend to develop a preference for pursuing incremental product improvements along existing trajectories rather than exploring radically different innovations (Levinthal and Myatt, 1994;Sørensen and Stuart, 2000).”
From On the contingent value of dynamic capabilities for competitive advantage: The nonlinear moderating effect of environmental dynamism (2014) · cites this paper as Sørensen and Stuart, 2000
Cites
Regression Models and Life-Tables
Cox, D. R. (1972) · Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B: Statistical Methodology · doi:10.1111/j.2517-6161.1972.tb00899.x · Cited by 39,793 · see citing works
Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning
March, J. G. (1991) · Organization Science · doi:10.1287/orsc.2.1.71 · Cited by 21,942 · see citing works
Interorganizational Collaboration and the Locus of Innovation: Networks of Learning in Biotechnology
Powell, W. W., Koput, K. W., & Smith-Doerr, L. (1996) · Administrative Science Quarterly · doi:10.2307/2393988 · Cited by 8,499 · see citing works
Technological paradigms and technological trajectories
Dosi, G. (1982) · Research Policy · doi:10.1016/0048-7333(82)90016-6 · Cited by 6,685 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Jansen, J. J. P., Van Den Bosch, F. A. J., & Volberda, H. W. (2006) · Management Science · doi:10.1287/mnsc.1060.0576 · Cited by 3,705 · see citing works
Schilke, O. (2014) · Strategic Management Journal · doi:10.1002/smj.2099 · Cited by 1,264 · see citing works
Networks, platforms, and strategy: Emerging views and next steps
McIntyre, D. P., & Srinivasan, A. (2017) · Strategic Management Journal · doi:10.1002/smj.2596 · Cited by 1,109 · see citing works
Are Firms Superior to Alliances and Markets? An Empirical Test of Cross-Border Knowledge Building
Almeida, P., Song, J., & Grant, R. M. (2002) · Organization Science · doi:10.1287/orsc.13.2.147.534 · Cited by 442 · see citing works
Neumeyer, X., & Santos, S. C. (2018) · Journal of Cleaner Production · doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.08.216 · Cited by 299 · see citing works
Organizational knowledge and collaborative human resource practices as determinants of innovation
Nieves, J., Quintana, A., & Osorio, J. (2016) · Knowledge Management Research & Practice · doi:10.1057/kmrp.2014.26 · Cited by 42 · see citing works
Geisendorf, S. (2010) · Computational Economics · doi:10.1007/s10614-009-9192-4 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
- Authors
- Sørensen, J. B., & Stuart, T. E.
- Affiliations
- University of Chicago (US)
- Venue
- Administrative Science Quarterly
- Publisher
- JSTOR
- Published
- 2000-03
- Volume
- 45
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 81-112
- ISSN
- 0001-8392 (ISSN-L)
- 1930-3815
- OpenAlex
- W2149241253
- Cited by
- 1,862
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 47 · 2025: 68 · 2024: 74 · 2023: 96 · 2022: 93 · 2021: 92 · 2020: 105 · 2019: 104 · 2018: 87 · 2017: 85 · 2016: 95 · 2015: 109 · 2014: 118 · 2013: 104 · 2012: 88
- FWCI
- 43.13
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Administrative Science Quarterly (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Firm Innovation and Growth
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Innovation and Knowledge Management
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management of Technology and Innovation › Intellectual Property and Patents
- Keywords
- organizational aging, organizational innovation, obsolescence, high-tech industry, organizational learning, innovation rate, patenting behavior, semiconductor industry, biotechnology industry, firm age
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
