An Autecological Theory of the Firm and Its Environment

The ecological study of firms has often been restricted by the approaches commonly used in organizational ecology. Uniquely, Colin Jones and Gimme Walter use autecology to explain the selective survival of all manner of firms that researchers, customers and resource providers encounter daily. It is the first work to unite views on the topic previously considered ‘alternative’, while remaining compatible with most theories of the firm. Autecology encourages researchers to contextualize ecological processes of firms, namely, their adaptive behaviors, the structure and dynamics of the environment, and their environmental interactions. This book emancipates the firm and its actors from a host of environmental assumptions that they are thought to share with others. In doing so, the authors explain how and why firms can and should be investigated on an ecological level. Drawing upon the historical and contemporary renaissance of autecological thought, this book elevates the ecological independence of the firm and its actors’ agency to solve problems in its environment. This study provides the means to consolidate the ecological study of firms and, more broadly, other forms of ecological study beyond the domain of social studies. This book will appeal to organizational and managerial researchers, sociologists, and anthropologists, given the manner in which human agency is promoted in an ecological context. Researchers interested in critical realism will also find this an engaging work.

Colin Jones, School of Management, Queensland University of Technology and Gimme Walter, School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia