Scope, Crowding, and Focused Identity: Impact on Innovation and Position Change of U.S. Automobile Manufacturers, 1885-1981.

Prior literature asserts that scope, crowding, and focused identity have pivotal effects on organizational mortality and position change. We argue that the mechanism through which the relationships between these features (i.e., scope, crowding, and focused identity) and mortality/position change unfold is innovation. To clarify the relationships between these three features and position change, we examine how these features affect the rate of innovation and how such innovations affect the rate of position change. Furthermore, we determine whether the effects of the three features depend on the type of innovation (i.e., incremental versus radical innovation). Then, we examine how innovations at both the focal firm level and the population level affect a firm's rate of position change. Our analyses are conducted in the context of longitudinal innovation dynamics of American automobile manufacturers from 1886-1981. On the basis of our findings, we draw some general implications regarding innovation and organizational change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]