ABSTRACT
One of the main contributions of the neo-institutional school of sociology of organizations has been the concept that forces in the environment constrain the forms that organizations can take. The expansion of the number of organized constituencies in the environment that demand attention from the organizational board has had significant effects on board structure and composition. The oldest of organizational science schools would suggest that independent of specific time period, organizational aging will be accompanied by processes of bureaucratization. To keep up in increasingly competitive task environments dominated by for-profits, nonprofit boards may be forced to speak the same language as their corporate resource exchange partners. If presence on nonprofit boards of trustees is an indicator of eliteness then, despite diversification of membership, all trustees of prestigious nonprofits will be defined as members of the elite. All organizations founded at the same period or that had lived through similar time periods would share fundamental organizational forms.
