Conceptions of environments vary by level of analysis as well as by substantive focus.

Analysis levels include the organizational set, organization population, and interorganizational community/organizational field. Establishing these levels is an important step in determining how environments are to be conceived. Each focuses on a somewhat different aspect of organizationenvironment relations, and each is associated with different theoretical perspectives. Each can be viewed as a useful way of depicting the environment of organizations. Organizational sets the concept of organization set was developed by analogy from Mertons (1957) concept of role-set. A given organization participates in a variety of relations depending on the identity of its specific partners and competitors. For example, a small grocery store will relate in one manner with its suppliers, another with its customers, yet another with its neighbors, and so on. This leads us to ask questions like the relative size of the organization set, the extent to which one group of role partners is aware of the demands made by another, and the extent to which expectations held by partners coincide. One of the more useful concepts to emerge at the analytical level of the organization set is that of organizational domain (Levine and White, 1961). An organizations domain consists of the range of products or services it provides and the types of clients or consumers served. Producing goods and providing services necessarily relate each organization to a number of other organizations-suppliers, customers, competitors-that affect its behavior and outcomes. A crucial, defining characteristic of the concept of organization set is that it views the environment from the standpoint of a specific (focal) organization. Relations or connections between other (counter) members of the set are of no concern unless they affect the activities or interests of the focal organization. It is from this level that the interests, the resources, the dependencies of a given organization are best examined and its survival tactics probed. It is also at this level that most discussions of strategic decision making occur (Porter, 1980). Organizational populations a second level identified by analysts is that of the population of organizations. This concept is used to identify aggregates of organizations that are alike in some respect. This is the level at which most natural selection theories have been applied, such as the organizational ecology model. Also, studies conducted of industry structure by economists employ a related level of analysis. Those concerned with studying populations have had to wrestle with the question of what it means to be alike in some respect. How are populations identified? In a population ecology approach, primary attention is given to the analysis of organizations exhibiting similar forms, to the varying strategies of competition, and to the selective effects of changes in environments. For example, Freeman and Brittain (1977) have studied mergers among national labor unions in the US, Carroll and Delacroix (1982) have studied mortality rates of Irish and Argentine newspapers; and Singh et al (1986) have examined the formation and dissolution of social service organizations in Toronto. Although this level of analysis clearly identifies an important set of questions and has attracted great interest, it directs attention away from connections among organization, in particular those organizations whose relations are more symbiotic and cooperative than commonalistic and competitive. Interorganizational communities and organizational fields - This level of analysis focuses attention on a collection of diverse types of organizations engaged in competitive and cooperative relations. Early students of interorganizatinal communities tended to focus more on co-location than on functional interdependence. With the emergence of the institutional

perspective, theorists developed the concept of organizational field to bound a collection of interdependent organizations operating with common rules, norms, and meaning systems. The community or field level represents a significant shift in focus from that of the individual organization, the organization set, or the population. Organizations are treated as members of larger, overarching systems exhibiting, to varying degrees, structure and coherence. In this sense, it provides a basis for integrating previous approaches and supports efforts to examine not only the effects of wider structures and processes on populations, sets, and organizations but also the ways in which individual organizations and their participants can influence their environments (Scott, 1993). Studies at the organization field and community level have been primarily guided by the theoretical interests of resource dependency, ecology, institutional theory, and Marxist perspectives.