Age Dependence
How an organization's risk of mortality relates to the age of that organization has also been extensively examined. Here, organizational ecologists have found a number of patterns:
- Liability of newness. Here, the risk of failure is high initially but declines as the organization ages.
- Liability of adolescence. The risk of mortality will be low at first as the organization is buffered from failure due to support by external constituents and initial endowments. But when these initial resources become depleted, the mortality hazard shoots up and then declines following the liability of newness pattern.
- Liabilities of aging. Here, the risk of failure increases with organizational age. This could be due to a liability of senescence (internal inefficiences arising from the aging of the organization) or a liability of obsolescence (a growing external mismatch with the environment).
Read more about this topic: Organizational Ecology
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