Evolutionary thought in management and organization theory at the beginning of the new millennium (original) (raw)

On the evolutionary and behavioral theories of organizations: a tentative roadmap

Organization Science, 2007

C yert and March's A Behavioral Theory of the Firm has been acknowledged as one of the most fundamental pillars on which evolutionary theorizing in economics is built. Nelson and Winter's 1982 book is pervaded by the philosophy and concepts previously developed by Cyert, March, and Simon. Behavioral notions, such as bounded rationality are also at the heart of economic theories of institutions such as transaction costs economics. In this paper, after briefly reviewing the basic concepts of evolutionary economics, we discuss its implications for the theory of organizations (and business firms in particular), and we suggest that evolutionary theory should coherently embrace an "embeddedness" view of organizations, whereby the latter are not simply efficient solutions to informational problems arising from contract incompleteness and uncertainty, but also shape the "visions of the world," interaction networks, behavioral patterns, and the identity of the agents. After outlining the basic features of this perspective, we analyze its consequences and empirical relevance.

Evolutionary Studies in Business: A Presentation of a New Journal

Journal of Evolutionary Studies in Business-JESB, 2016

The Journal of Evolutionary Studies in Business is a new open access journal led by an international interdisciplinary team of scholars located in eight institutions from three continents who wants to attract contributions that help shed light on the new questions, challenges, methodologies and realities, faced by businesses in an evolutionary perspective. The journal calls particularly for review essays that deal with new research topics about business, and provide useful overviews of the key ideas, scholars, and debates about important research topics concerning business and its environment.

Understanding Organizational Evolution: Toward a Research Agenda using Generalized Darwinism

Organization Studies, 2013

The terms ‘evolution’ and ‘coevolution’ are widely used in organization studies but rarely defined. Often it is unclear whether they refer to single entities or populations. When specific evolutionary processes are suggested, the labelling is often misleading. For example, in the debate over the roles of individual adaptation and competitive selection, the ‘selectionist’ position of Michael Hannan and John Freeman, which emphasizes the role of selection and stress the limits of individual firm adaptability, is often described as ‘Darwinian’ whereas opposing views that emphasize adaptability are described as ‘Lamarckian’. But these labels are not strictly dichotomous. Scholars have shown that core Darwinian principles, resulting from abstract ontological communality rather than analogy, apply to social evolution. This opens up a research agenda using the principles of generalized Darwinism and the replicator–interactor framework to help understand the evolution of organizations. Some...

Evolutionary Theory and Evolutionary Management

Proceedings of the 8th International Management Conference: Management Challenges for Sustainable Development, 2014

The Darwinian idea of evolution by natural selection has an algorithmic character, and is therefore susceptible to application in various fields, such as social and economic life, as well as the science of organizations. Although still controversial, the introduction of the evolutionary principles into the study of management principles must be seen as an alternative analytical framework to the neoclassical principles of economic analysis that gained primary importance in the twentieth century. We will try to show how, using the principles of evolutionary theory, one can formulate some general principles of management, of organisational policy-making, and also some practical rules of managing organisations. Also, we will briefly present the results of a qualitative research destined to find out whether Romanian managers have any knowledge about the rules of evolutionary management or, if informed about these rules, they find them appropriate and manifest their willingness to test them in practice.

The Meaning of Evolutionary Language in the Study of Organizations: Lost in Translation?

2014

This paper explores the institutionalisation of key evolutionary terms in scientific discourse and how these impact the language concerned with the evolution of organizations. Evolutionary models in management and organization theory display a bewildering array of applications and interpretations so that the meaning of key terms such as “selection” and “co-evolution” is inconsistent, frequently confused and lost in translation. Through a comprehensive bibliometric and narrative analysis of an expanding literature we determine that “evolution” is a vague word. Often treating evolutionary terms as precise and meaningful, and “evolution” as a term upon which we are all agreed, we find broad and ambiguous terms often substitute in this literature for clear definition and precise explanation. In the interests of progress towards a more unifying evolutionary interpretive framework, we call for greater clarity and precision in the use of evolutionary language.

Darwinism, organizational evolution and survival: key challenges for future research

Journal of Management & Governance, 2015

How do social organizations evolve? How do they adapt to environmental pressures? What resources and capabilities determine their survival within dynamic competition? Charles Darwin's seminal work The Origin of Species (1859) has provided a significant impact on the development of the management and organization theory literatures on organizational evolution. This article introduces the JMG Special Issue focused on Darwinism, organizational evolution and survival. We discuss key themes in the organizational evolution research that have emerged in recent years. These include the increasing adoption of the co-evolutionary approach, with a particular focus on the definition of appropriate units of analysis, such as routines, and related challenges associated with exploring the relationship between co-evolution, re-use of knowledge, adaptation, and exaptation processes. We then introduce the three articles that we have finally accepted in this Special Issue after an extensive, multi-round, triple blind-review process. We briefly outline how each of these articles contributes to understanding among scholars, practitioners and policy makers of the continuous evolutionary processes within and among social organizations and systems.

A Conceptual View of Organizational Evolution

Evolution is a well-established biological theory, and basic concepts can be abstracted and applied to nonbiological domains such as organizations. There is a gap in the literature regarding how evolutionary processes can be applied to domains other than biology. While this gap is closing, it is still debated and argued. This paper includes a general evolutionary algorithm and an abstract limits-to-success network model to explore examples of how evolution is applicable to nonbiological systems. This paper provides a theoretical approach to generalizing evolution rather than closing a gap in the literature.

A new perspective on: evolutionary processes and organizational adaptation

Journal of Organization Design

Levinthal’s (Evolutionary processes and organizational adaptation: a Mendelian perspective on strategic management. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2021) book is not only a helpful resource on the many facets of organizational adaptation, but also a source of inspiration that promises to revitalize research on organizational evolution. Taking inspiration from this book, I outline a perspective on three topics that may enrich management research: (1) Levinthal’s treatment of path-dependence is a much-needed candidate for a general account of selection processes across biological and social domains; (2) Levinthal’s idea that corporate diversification and technological disruption may be considered instances of speciation—i.e., branching of lineages—(re)frames an exciting research agenda at the intersection of ecology and evolution; (3) Considering executives as a population of fruit flies may, from the perspective of empirical research, be a useful complement to the idea of the Mendel...