Decline is a change over time from previously efficient to inefficient organizational functioning, from previously rational to non-rational organizational and individual decision-making, from previously law-abiding to law violating organizational and individual behavior, from previously virtuous to iniquitous individual moral behavior. Note: The word decline should not be confused with the word obsolete. Decline refers to the degenerating of something whereas obsolete refers to the outdating of something or that it is no longer in use. It is the process of declining, a gradual sinking and wasting away.

Social decline or moral decline is typically characterised as reduced adherence to cultural

Culture

Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

 or social norms

Norm (sociology)

Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...

 or value

Value (personal and cultural)

A personal or cultural value is an absolute or relative ethical value, the assumption of which can be the basis for ethical action. A value system is a set of consistent values and measures. A principle value is a foundation upon which other values and measures of integrity are based...

s and widespread lapses in ethical

Ethics

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

 behavior.

Entities and organizations may enter a state of decline if they fail to respond effectively to changes, because they :

• Don't know about it : inability to recognize change in the organizational environment
• Can't : insufficient resources to respond to change in the organizational environment
• Don't want to : refusal to respond to change in the organizational environment because organizational leaders benefit from organizational decline

See also

• Decline of the Roman Empire
  Decline of the Roman Empire
  The decline of the Roman Empire refers to the gradual societal collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Many theories of causality prevail, but most concern the disintegration of political, economic, military, and other social institutions, in tandem with foreign invasions and usurpers from within the...
  
  
• Social disintegration
  Social disintegration
  Social disintegration is the tendency for society to decline or disintegrate over time, perhaps due to the lapse or breakdown of traditional social support systems. In this context, "society" refers to the social order which maintains a society, rather than the political order that defines its...
  
  
• Societal collapse
  Societal collapse
  Societal collapse broadly includes both quite abrupt societal failures typified by collapses , as well as more extended gradual declines of superpowers...
  
  
• Declension
  Declension
  In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...
  
  (grammatical change)