Title: Imprinting (organizational theory) - Wikipedia
Headings: Imprinting (organizational theory)
Imprinting (organizational theory)
Contents
Organizational research on imprinting
Imprinting at other levels of analysis
See also
References

Content: For example, as most university fraternities emerged in three different waves, their current organizational features still reflect the imprint of one of these three periods. The first wave of foundings reflected the secularization of Northern liberal arts colleges in the 1840s; the second wave began in the South in the latter half of the 1860s; and the third wave came between 1900 and 1920, when marginalized populations of Black, Catholic, and Jewish students established fraternities emphasizing anti-discrimination goals. In subsequent periods, each of these three different types carried the legacy of their founding environment. Event though Stinchcombe did not specifically use the term "imprinting," the term soon became associated with his essay. Stinchcombe’s primary focus was at the industry level, but most subsequent studies have examined how individual organizations bear a lasting imprint of founding conditions. For instance, in a series of studies on Silicon Valley high-tech start-ups, scholars have measured founders’ mental models and initial decisions and then tracked how these founding conditions influenced subsequent organizational trajectories. The results suggest that the organizational patterns set by a founder have persistent effects on a wide array of outcomes even after the founder leaves the firm. Imprinting at other levels of analysis
Even though the organization has been the dominant level of analysis in much of the literature building on the imprinting concept, recent years have also seen the emergence of imprinting research at the other levels analysis as well.