Michael T. Hannan

Biography

Hannan received his BA at the College of the Holy Cross in 1965, his MA at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1968, where he also obtained his PhD in sociology in 1970.

Hannan started his academic career as Assistant Professor of Sociology at Stanford University, where he got promoted to Professor of Sociology. In 1984 he moved to Cornell University, where he was appointed Professor of Social Sciences. In 1991 he moved back to Stanford to become Professor of Management and Professor of Sociology, and since 2015 Emeritus.

Among others he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowships in sociology in 1987, and a Max Weber Award by the American Sociological Association in 1191 and 2002.

Work

Organizational ecology

Hannan and John H. Freeman were the first to formulate an explicit organizational theory about population ecology with the 1977 article in the American Journal of Sociology, which was the seminal work in the field of organizational ecology. This article proposed:

... [a] population ecology perspective on organization-environment relations... as an alternative to the dominant adaptation perspective. The strength of inertial pressures on organizational structure suggests the application of models that depend on competition and selection in populations of organizations. Several such models, as well as issues arising in attempts to apply them to the organization-environment problem, are discussed.

The scope of their organizational ecology theory ranged from birth of new organizations (organizational founding), organizational growth and organizational change, to the death of organizations (firm mortality). Organizations compete in their environment, where processes like natural selection rule.

Selected publications

• Hannan, Michael T., and Glenn R. Carroll. Dynamics of organizational populations: Density, legitimation, and competition. Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Hannan, Michael T., and John H. Freeman. Organizational ecology. Harvard University Press, 1993.

Articles, a selection

• Hannan, Michael T., and John H. Freeman. "The population ecology of organizations." American journal of sociology 82.5 (1977): 929-964.
• Hannan, Michael T., and John H. Freeman. "Structural inertia and organizational change." American sociological review (1984): 149-164.