Organizational Ecology and Its Implications on Organizational Ecological Innovation

Introduction

The debate on organizational ecology surrounds the mechanisms underlying the effects of age on life mechanisms (Barron, West & Hannan, 1994; Hannan, 1998). There are many debates on the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological issues related to organizational ecology and little effort to integrate them into an emerging research field (Wholey, & Brittain, 1986). The debates around organizational ecology regarding the mechanisms of age and their effects on life changes still rage (Barron, West, & Hannan, 1994; Hannan, 1998). There are many organizational ecology studies on the effects of organizational age on the life and behavior of organizational changes. There is a trend in applying organizational ecology in business research (Liu et al., 2022).

Organizational ecology develops an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary framework of sustainable development (Carayannis & Campbell, 2010) where the knowledge and innovation blend, and can be interpreted as an approach with sustainable development and social ecology (Atiku, 2020; Fields & Atiku, 2017; 2018). Organizations possess information-processing routines and technological trajectories used to facilitate incremental innovation (Tushman & Anderson, 1986; Henderson, 1993). Organizations generate, develop, and communicate socio-ecological knowledge, norms sentiments, and innovation sensitive for the entrepreneurs and stakeholders in the scientific and technological inventories and socio-ecological projects that create a macro-effect in social and ecological dimensions.

The fundamental difference between the organizational ecological and economic approaches is the empirical account for organizational survival. There is a link between organizational survival and innovation with an indirect link between innovation and survival. Organizational survival and innovation outcomes are not always transparent. The critical differences between organizational ecological theory and organizational economic approaches are the identification of the relevance of competition and mutualism within and between environmental niches (Atiku, 2019). The indicators for voluntary environmental regulation elements are the environmental and ecological certifications, the environmental information disclosure, and the environmental supervision.

There is an increasing gap between organizational innovative capabilities and the technological frontiers, which is the opportunity for new organizations to align their internal routines with technological development. It needs to be studied, and the joint effects of age and innovation outcomes in organizational growth and mortality models. Organizational innovation becomes more incremental and process innovation increases with product innovation.

Existing research shows that organizations not only focus on improving their current performance but also try to create greater value for the business ecosystem when making strategic choices (Liu et al., 2022) This research on organizational ecology and its implications on organizational ecological innovation aims to study the assumption that the theoretical and conceptual framework of organizational ecology is positively associates with ecological innovation in organizations. To achieve this objective, it reviews the conceptual and theoretical elements of the organizational ecology leading to explain some of the main implications in the organizational innovation. Finally, some conclusions are presented.