Anand Swaminathan

Mining email social networks

Communication & Co-ordination activities are central to large software projects, but are difficult to observe and study in traditional (closed-source, commercial) settings because of the prevalence of informal, direct communication modes. OSS projects, on the other hand, use the internet as the communication medium,and typically conduct discussions in an open, public manner. As a result, the email archives of OSS projects provide a useful trace of the communication and co-ordination activities of the participants. However, there are various challenges that must be addressed before this data can be effectively mined. Once this is done, we can construct social networks of email correspondents, and begin to address some interesting questions. These include questions relating to participation in the email; the social status of different types of OSS participants; the relationship of email activity and commit activity (in the CVS repositories) and the relationship of social status with commit activity. In this paper, we begin with a discussion of our infrastructure (including a novel use of Scientific Workflow software) and then discuss our approach to mining the email archives; and finally we present some preliminary results from our data analysis.

Environmental Conditions at Founding and Organizational Mortality: A Trial-by-Fire Model

Unobserved heterogeneity in organizational frailty and population- level learning suggest a particular relationship between environmental conditions at founding and organizational mortality. Organi...

The proliferation of specialist organizations in the American wine industry, 1941-1990

The research reported here was supported by the University of Michigan Business School. I thank Glenn Carroll, Mike Hout, and Trond Petersen for their advice on my dissertation research. Comments on earlier versions of this paper by Bill Barnett, Joel Baum, Jacques Delacroix, Jane Dutton, Heather Haveman, Will Mitchell, Christine Oliver, Linda Pike, and three anonymous reviewers were invaluable. Please address all correspondence to Anand Swaminathan, University of Michigan Business School, Ann Arbor, Ml 48109-1234. To account for the proliferation of specialist organizations as industries mature, this paper examines the relative importance of four processes-density dependence in founding rates, niche formation through changes in consumer preferences, resource partitioning, and direct institutional support-to explain the level and dispersion in foundings of specialist organizations. Analyses of the founding rate of specialist organizations, farm wineries, over 1941-1990 reveal that state-level farm winery density has the strongest impact on both the level and dispersion of farm winery foundings. Density effects are followed by the effects of resource partitioning, institutional support, and niche formation, in order of level of importance, and by the effects of niche formation, institutional support, and resource partitioning, in order of the importance to dispersion. The results suggest that factors such as density dependence and resource partitioning that are endogenous to a specific population need to be considered in combination with factors such as niche formation and changes in the institutional environment that are exogenous to the population to account adequately for the proliferation of specialist organizations.

Resource Partitioning and the Evolution of Specialist Organizations: The Role of Location and Identity in the U.S. Wine Industry

Analyses of founding and mortality rates of specialist organizations in the U.S. wine industry over the period 1941-90 support Carroll’s (1985) location-based resource-partitioning model—crowding o...

Organizational processes of resource partitioning

By the logic of many theories of organization, the dominance of large firms in an industry should hinder the emergence and operation of small specialist firms. Yet, in modern economies, a variety of industries display simultaneous trends of increased concentration and specialist proliferation. Within the perspective of organizational ecology, the theory fragment known as resource partitioning views these two trends as interdependent. The theory holds that under certain environmental and organizational conditions, the increased dominance of large firms in an industry will enhance the life chances of specialist organizations. Here, we examine this theory and the evidence that has been offered in its support. We discuss four different mechanisms that produce resource partitioning: location, customization, anti-mass-production cultural sentiment, and conspicuous status consumption. We also explore empirical issues involved in investigating these mechanisms. Finally, we describe some interesting and little investigated problems of the theory.

Modularity and the Impact of Buyer--Supplier Relationships on the Survival of Suppliers

Modularity in product design and flexible supply chains is increasingly common in buyer--supplier relationships. Although the benefits of supply chain flexibility and component modularity for end-product manufacturers are accepted, little is known about their impact on suppliers. We advance the literature on modularity by exploring how three aspects of a suppliers relationships with its customers affect the suppliers survival: duration of buyer--supplier relationships, autonomy from customers, and links to prominent buyers. We compared the effects of these aspects of buyer--supplier relationships for low- and high-modularity components. Using data on U.S. carburetor and clutch manufacturers from 1918 to 1942, we found that suppliers of high-modularity components benefited more from autonomy provided by potential customers, whereas suppliers of low-modularity components benefited more from ties to higher status customers. Both benefited from autonomy generated by existing customers. Thus, relationships that require trust and extensive sets of interfirm routines, as do those for low-modularity components, led to both greater relationship benefits and greater constraints.

Normative and Resource Flow Consequences of Local Regulations in the American Brewing Industry, 1845-1918

1,168,797. Insecticides containing derivatives of ckrysanthemic and related acids. NATIONAL RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT CORP. 18 Nov., 1966 [9 Dec., 1965], No. 52406/65. Heading A5E. [Also in Division C2] An insecticidal composition comprises an inert diluent or carrier and, as active ingredient, at least one compound of the formula: wherein Z represents an aryl, alkenyl or carboalkoxyalkenyl group, R 1 and R 2 , which may be the same or different, each represent a hydrogen atom or an alkyl, alkenyl or alkadienyl group, and Y represents a hydrogen atom or an alkyl, alkenyl or alkadienyl group or an aryl or furyl group which may be substituted in the ring by alkyl alkenyl, alkadienyl or alkoxy groups or halogen atoms. The compositions may be prepared in the form of dusts and granular solids, mosquito coils, wettable powders, emulsions, sprays and aerosols after addition of appropriate solvents, diluents and surfactants and the active compounds may be synergised, e.g. with piperonyl butoxide, or with other known pyrethrum synergists. Pyrethrum extract also may be present. The compositions may be employed for killing insects on a domestic or agricultural scale by treating the insects themselves where insect infestation has already occurred or by treating an environment susceptible to insect attack.

ENTRY INTO NEW MARKET SEGMENTS IN MATURE INDUSTRIES: ENDOGENOUS AND EXOGENOUS SEGMENTATION IN THE U.S. BREWING INDUSTRY

I evaluate two processes, niche formation and resource-partitioning, that could independently account for the entry of firms into new market segments in mature industries. The niche formation argument focuses on environmental changes that promote the entry of new firms whereas the research-partitioning argument is based on the internal differentiation of a mature industry into subgroups composed of specialist and generalists. In other words, the niche formation and resource-partitioning accounts emphasize forces that are exogenous and endogenous to the industry, respectively. I attempt to resolve this theoretical tension by modeling the effects of niche formation and resource-partitioning together on the founding of firms in the microbrewery and brewpub segments of the U.S. brewing industry. I find that niche formation provides a better explanation for both microbrewery and brewpub foundings. In addition, I find limited evidence that the process of resource-partitioning is being played out again within the microbrewery segment of the industry. Implications for the evolution of organizational heterogeneity within industries are discussed.© 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Strat. Mgmt. J., Vol. 19, 389‐404, 1998 Historical records of several organizational populations show that most organizations within them were founded in brief periods (Stinchombe, 1965; Aldrich, 1979: 177). Stinchcombe (1965: 154) notes that ‘an examination of the history of almost any type of organization shows that there are great spurts of foundation of organizations of the type, followed by relatively slower growth, perhaps to be followed by new spurts, generally of a fundamentally different kind of organization in the same field.’ Sociologists explain this punctuated pattern in foundings in terms of factors affecting the distribution of resources in the environment. These include the changing role of the state, the development of a market-oriented

Does the pattern of density dependence in organizational mortality rates vary across levels of analysis? evidence from the German brewing industry☆

Abstract Using life-history data on all Bavarian breweries over the period 1900–1981, we find that state-level density dependence in mortality rates conforms to the pattern found at the national level. The effects of state-level and national organizational density primarily reflect the “competition” phase of industry evolution. Brewery mortality rates in the largest cities do not exhibit any city-level density dependence. However, breweries located in the five largest Bavarian cities exert competitive pressures on the entire organizational population whereas rural/small-town breweries generate mutualistic effects. The results emphasize the importance of identifying the levels of analysis at which Hannans (1986) model of density-dependent evolution in organizational populations applies.

Density Dependent Organizational Evolution in the American Brewing Industry from 1633 to 1988

The ecological model of density dependent organizational evolution is tested using data on the 7,709 breweries operating in the American market. Besides covering the longest time period studied to date, these data allow for exammacon of three important issues that critics of the model have raised: (1) applicability to commercial business organizations; (2) plausibility of alternative interpretations involving size and mass; and (3) measurement of legitimation. Estimates of stochastic rates of organizational founding and mortality show that, while there is ment in some of the criticisms, both rates are nonetheless non-monotomcally related to organizational density in ways predicted by the model. In most instances, these relationships persist when the rate functions are specified with different socio-economic control vanables. The strong support found for the model helps reconcile some previously reported negative evidence