Organizational scholars often adopt biological models to explain the emergence and evolution of organizations and human systems. One recent example of such adoption is the organizational ecosystem metaphor. In this article, we contend that taking a rigorous ecological approach over the application of loose ecosystem language has the potential to illuminate patterns in the life span of organizations and human systems. We first define five central properties of biological ecosystems and demonstrate their potential relevance to human-constructed systems (organizational ecosystems). We then argue the value of developing biologically based hypotheses that can be tested in the context of organizational systems. Next, we propose a set of hypotheses specific to organizational stability and disruption, using Arizona charter schools as an example to demonstrate the promise of the rigorous application of the organizational ecosystem metaphor. We close with a discussion of how the insights generated might be applied across other organizational settings and systems.

This paper presents two clarifying cases of socially oriented student entrepreneurship. The findings illuminate an overlooked organizational space located at the intersection of the public good and academic capitalist knowledge/learning regimes (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004) that provides students with the entrepreneurial agency to create social change.

Economic re-localization is widely viewed as a principal mechanism for bringing greater autonomy, democracy, justice, prosperity, and general wellness to communities. Entrepreneurial initiatives that are bounded to the localized scale are a fundamental element of the underlying localism movement. The current study uses a set of theoretical constructs pulled from everyday sociology (reflexivity, contextualism, interaction) to guide a qualitative exploration of the implications of localized scale on the routine practices and day-to-day realities of localized food entrepreneurs (LFEs) in Southern Arizona, USA and Central New Mexico, USA. The findings reveal the following four attributes that characterize the influence of localized scale on the daily lives and entrepreneurial trajectories of the LFEs included in the study: set market cap, bounded experimentation, perpetual persistence, and collective currency. The findings evoke a provocative critique of the social and economic merits of localism as an alternative path toward community development.

Local food entrepreneurs are confronted with unique challenges when it comes to sustaining their firms and scaling their pro-community impact within geographically confined marketspaces. Yet, the strategies for overcoming these challenges remain under-studied within the community development and local food literatures. The current study addresses this scholarly gap through a qualitative case study of a southern Arizona artisan baker who follows a community-supported business model that strategically engages customers as value co-creators and stewards of a sustainable and scalable local consumption space. The study is conceptually framed by a set of principles that span community entrepreneurship, cultural entrepreneurship, and value co-creation. Data include semi-structured interviews with the baker and a sample of customers (n = 31), 20+ h of direct observations, and 3419 posts made within the bakery’s social media environment. The findings inform the theoretical development of a novel local food value co-creation model.