Organization Adjustment to Population Change in Nonmetropolitan America: A Longitudinal Analysis of Retail Trade

The impact of population change on retailing is examined using longitudinal data for nonmetropolitan counties. Analysis confirms the ecological expectation that population change cannot prevail for long without concomitant adjustments in organization structure. Such adjustments became pronounced as the magnitude and duration of consistent population change increased. As income rose, retail sales grew whether a county gained or lost population: however, population change affected the size of the sales increment. The response to population change included shifts in both the number and operational scale of units. Adjustments in the number of establishments were in the same direction but less than proportionate to population shifts, reflecting organization resistance to unit adjustments. This resistance, coupled with spiraling retail demand, caused employment gains and expansion of organization scale in both growing and declining counties. Because the retail response to population increase was not symmetrical to that for decline, the expectation a single process of organization adjustment could accommodate both growth and decline was rejected.