Organizational decline: a yet largely neglected topic in organizational studies

Well known and reputable corporations, not only the small entrepreneurial firms, also face organizational decline and failure. Albeit organizational decline is a reality, there is a notable scarcity of research on the topic. Organizational decline is more often studied in small companies and attributed to the liability of newness and a lack of a variety of physical, technological, financial and social resources. In this review paper we examine the extant research on organizational decline. Empirically, we conduct a bibliometric study involving citations and co-citations analyses to uncover the connections between authors and theories used. We conclude that evolutionary theories support a considerable number of works, namely on the effects of inertia, isomorphism and adaptation. Sociological approaches have examined the adjustment of the internal structures and actions to enhance positioning. Other research on decline has taken a learning and decision making perspective or focused on turnaround strategies. Noteworthy is also the scarcity of research using a resource-based view (RBV), perhaps because the emergence of the RBV in the 1990s coincided with strategy scholars? decreased interest on organizational decline. Notwithstanding, organizational decline is still one of the core areas of research for organizational ecologists.