'Organizational Legitimacy and the Liability of Newness', Administrative Science Quarterly, 31, pp. 171—93,

In a seminal paper. Stinchcombe (1965) argued that young organizations have a higher propensity to die than old organiZations. Th1s liability of newness occurs because young organizations have to learn new roles as soc1al actors. coordinate new roles for employees and deal w1th problems of mutual soc1alizat1on of participants. and because of both the1r inability to compete effectively with established organ1zat1ons and the1r low levels of leg1t1rnacy. The intu1tive appeal of the a1gument led to its frequent use. hut until relatively recently, few emp~ncal studies have addressed the 1ssue.