Brewery and Brauerei: The Organizational Ecology of Brewing
研究了1861-1988年间德国和美国酿造业组织数量的长期变化，发现两国啤酒厂数量都经历了缓慢增长、19世纪末快速扩张和近一个世纪严重下降的相似模式，并用组织生态学的密度依赖模型解释了这一过程。
Germans and Americans differ in their beer drinking habits and customs. The organizational structures of their brewing industries also differ: Germany is notable for the highly fragmented nature of its industry, which contains many more breweries than the larger American industry. Yet the historical evolution of the two brewing industries is remarkably similar. In both Germany and the U.S., the number of breweries grew slowly for a long period, then expanded rapidly in the late 19th century, and finally declined severely for almost a century. Intrigued by this common pattern, we attempt to explain long-term organizational change in the two industries using the ecological perspective on organizations. We focus on the organizational ecology model of density-dependent legitimation and com petition. Our tests use life history data on all breweries known to have operated in the U.S. and Germany during the period 1861 to 1988. We estimate and report specific tests of the density model using stochastic rates of organizational founding and mortality. The findings are generally supportive of the model and suggest that the organizational evolution of both the German and American brewing industries was density dependent.