This “population ecology” view of organization brings Darwin’s theory of evolution right
into the center of organizational analysis. In essence, the argument is as follows.
Organizations, like organisms in nature, depend for survival on their ability to acquire an
adequate supply of the resources necessary to sustain existence. In this effort, they have to
face competition from other organizations, and since there is usually a resource scarcity, only
the fittest survive. The nature, numbers, and distribution of organizations at any given time
are dependent on resource availability and on competition within and between different
species of organizations. The environment is thus the critical factor in determining which
organizations succeed and which fail, “selecting” the most robust competitors through
elimination of the weaker ones.