Questions about antecedents and consequences
basically are variance questions (Abbott,
1990; Mohr, 1982). For any process one can
look for correlations in the conditions that initiate
the process and in the consequences of the
process. These are fundamental questions in
fields ranging from organizational ecology (e.g.,
"How does density affect foundings and failures?")
to organizational demographics (e.g.,
"How does group composition affect performance?").