Archetypes of Organizational Success and Failure

This paper presents inductive theoretical work inspired by the empirical study of the high-tech rivals General Electric and Westinghouse. Comparative historical analysis suggests that each firm’s responses to five organizational challenges have affected their chances of enjoying long-term success. In addition, the theoretical work advances two polar ideal types of organizational success and failure: the self-perpetuating and the selfdestructive archetypes, respectively. These should be seen as extreme states of the existence of firms since, in reality, firms operate in some intermediary state. A process-oriented perspective of theory building advances relations of necessity towards organizational long-term success, and integrates the responses to challenges into a requisites model for the development of a propensity for organizational self-perpetuation.