Nature or nurture? Agency life‐cycles as a function of institutional legacy, political environment, and organizational hardwiring

Abstract

Abstract A growing body of literature attempts to explain the life‐cycles of public sector organizations. Of particular interest have been the form and incidence of their birth and termination, and connecting these events to such variables as legal status and political ideology. Less attention has been given to the effect of intermediary life‐cycle events, the tasks performed by agencies, and their policy domains. This study builds on existing fixed characteristics (nature) and dynamic environmental (nurture) approaches and uniquely supplements them with a new institutional legacy paradigm that examines how previous organizational reforms influence future reform. Moreover, we advance existing studies by providing more comprehensive tests of the role that task type and policy domain play. Finally, we retest “classic” nature and nurture variables, namely, political turnover and legal form. Results suggest that nature and nurture provide important pieces of the organizational life‐cycle puzzle and that nurture comprises both external and intra‐organizational dynamics.

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