Collective Strategy: Social Ecology of Organizational Environments.

Abstract

Population ecologists, emphasizing the powerful constraining influence of environment on organizational autonomy, challenge the validity of the notion of strategic choice, which is so central to the field of business policy. This criticism may apply legitimately at the level of single organizations, but it does not reduce the importance of strategic choice at the collective level of analysis. A framework for analyzing strategic actions undertaken jointly by members of interorganizational collectivities is offered, based on a social ecological approach.