Monotonic market change: How contracting/expanding Protestant markets impact the founding of American Protestant international ministries

Abstract

Ecological density dependence theory argues that organizational founding rates have an inverted U-shaped relationship with density (the number of organizations already present). This study develops this theory by showing how the “density dependent” curve is moderated by continually expanding/contracting opportunities among religious movement organizations. Using event-history analyses, I investigate how the rate at which transnational American Protestant mission agencies found new ministries internationally is influenced simultaneously by density and continuous expansion/contraction of a country's Protestant market share (i.e., “monotonic market change”). Results show that as Protestant market share increases from continuous years of contraction to expansion, the peak founding rate of the density curve changes non-monotonically while the density at this peak rate increases monotonically. The study concludes by considering how a theory of monotonic market change may contribute to the study of religious as well as secular movement organizations and nonprofits more broadly.