This book presents the latest research and theory about organizational evolutionary change. It brings together the work of organization theorists who have played key roles in challenging the orthodox adaptation views that prevailed until the beginning of the 1980s. Joel A.C. Baum and Jitendra V. Singh emphasize hierarchy of evolutionary processes at the intraorganizational level, the organizational level, the population level, and the community level. Derived from a conference held at the Stern School of Business at New York University, Evolutionary Dynamics of Organizations is organized in a way that gives order and coherence to what has been a diverse and multidisciplinary field.
Organizational change and innovation are central and enduring issues in management theory and practice. Dramatic changes in population demographics, technology, competitive survival, and social, economic, and environmental health and sustainability concerns means the need to understand how organizations repond to these shifts through change and innovation has never been greater. Why and what organizations change is generally well known; how organizations change is therefore the central focus of this Handbook. It focuses on processes of change — or the sequence of events in which organizational characteristics and activities change and develop over time — and the factors that influence these processes, with the organization as the central unit of analysis. Across the diverse and wide-ranging contributions, three central questions evolve: what is the nature of change and process?; what are the key concepts and models for understanding organization change and innovation?; and how should we study change and innovation? This Handbook presents critical evolving scholarship from leading experts across a range of disciplines, and explores its implications for future research and practice.
At a time of unprecedented expansion in the life sciences, evolution is the one theory that transcends all of biology. Any observation of a living system must ultimately be interpreted in the context of its evolution. Evolutionary change is the consequence of mutation and natural selection, which are two concepts that can be described by mathematical equations. Evolutionary Dynamics is concerned with these equations of life. In this book, Martin A. Nowak draws on the languages of biology and mathematics to outline the mathematical principles according to which life evolves. His work introduces readers to the powerful yet simple laws that govern the evolution of living systems, no matter how complicated they might seem. Evolution has become a mathematical theory, Nowak suggests, and any idea of an evolutionary process or mechanism should be studied in the context of the mathematical equations of evolutionary dynamics. His book presents a range of analytical tools that can be used to this end: fitness landscapes, mutation matrices, genomic sequence space, random drift, quasispecies, replicators, the Prisoner’s Dilemma, games in finite and infinite populations, evolutionary graph theory, games on grids, evolutionary kaleidoscopes, fractals, and spatial chaos. Nowak then shows how evolutionary dynamics applies to critical real-world problems, including the progression of viral diseases such as AIDS, the virulence of infectious agents, the unpredictable mutations that lead to cancer, the evolution of altruism, and even the evolution of human language. His book makes a clear and compelling case for understanding every living system—and everything that arises as a consequence of living systems—in terms of evolutionary dynamics.
Understanding the behaviour of individuals and firms is at the heart of evolutionary economics, and also of related fields such as behavioural economics, management, and psychology. This book brings together a set of cutting-edge theoretical and empirical contributions addressing individual agents and their interaction, the evolution of firm organization, as well as the interplay of firm dynamics and regional development.
`I have no doubt this book will be read and used time and again by any scholar working within the evolutionary approach to organizations. I believe that it will also be of great interest to strategy scholars' - Management `Rodolphe Durand has a compelling message for the growing community of evolutionary researchers in organization studies. Evolutionary researchers need to attend more carefully to historical and contemporary debates in the biological sciences if they are to avoid false tracks and simplisitic analogies. Durand offers here the foundations of a distinctive and authentic evolutionary theory that takes organizations seriously for what they are' - Richard Whittington, Oxford University `This book fills an important gap in the study of organizations and strategy from an evolutionary perspective. It offers a synthetic approach to evolutionary analysis with grounded empirical examples that graduate students and seasoned scholars alike will find immensely useful. Durand's OES model, rooted in a critical examination of philosophical and scientific writings on evolution, is particularly promising and provides a valuable guidepost for future research on organizations and strategic management' - Michael Lounsbury, University of Alberta How is economic evolutionary theory, in which organisations evolve according to environmental selection, reconciled with evidence of strategic management? This book is the first of its kind to propose a solution to this theoretical puzzle and engage readers in a balanced understanding of organizational evolution. Rodolphe Durand embarks upon a fresh assessment of the literature. His discoveries provide the foundation for a new theory of organizational selection and an organizational evolution and strategy model that reconciles economic evolution with strategic intentionality. Chapters include an examination of the work by Lamarck, Darwin and Spencer; a constructive appraisal of evolutionary theory applied to organisations and a summary of how the organizational evolution and strategy model will affect future theory and research. - An associated web site with further information can be found at: http://studies.hec.fr/web/durand
In response to the needs of lecturers, the acclaimed Handbook of Organization Studies has been made available as two major paperback textbooks. In this, the first of a two-volume paperback edition of the landmark Handbook of Organization Studies, editors Stewart Clegg and Cynthia Hardy survey the field of organization studies. Studying Organization is an ideal textbook around which to build courses on organization theory and research methodology. Central to the enterprise has been a concern to reflect and honour the manifest diversity of the field, including recognition of the extent to which the very notion of a single field of organization studies is debated. Part One locates the study of organization by reviewing some of the most significant theoretical paradigms to have shaped our understanding. The second part reflects on the relationships between theory and research in organization studies.
`Howard Aldrich and Martin Ruef's tour de force shows us how the evolutionary approach can explain change not only in organizational populations, but within sectors and within organizations. Aldrich and Ruef display an astonishing command of the management literature, using vivid illustrations from cutting edge research to show how the processes of variation, selection, retention, and struggle operate within organizations and across them. A lucid and engaging book that should appeal both to the newcomer to organization theory and to the old pro' - Frank Dobbin, Harvard University A keenly anticipated Second Edition of an award winning classic, Organizations Evolving presents a sophisticated evolutionary view of key organizational paradigms that will give readers a unified understanding of modern organizations. This Second Edition is an up-to-date survey of the literature, as well as an overview of the new developments across organization studies. It contains new sections on organizational forms, community evolution and methods for studying organizations at multiple levels. The field of organization studies contains many contending paradigms that often puzzle and perplex students. This book is a stunning synthesis of the major organizational paradigms under the umbrella of organizational theory. Scholars and students will find it an excellent guide to the strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches, as well as an outstanding review of the best recent empirical research on organizations. The book includes many helpful features, such as: - Review questions and exercises that will consolidate reader's learning - A methodological appendix that assesses common research methods - Engaging cases that bring principles and concepts to life This Second Edition is a rich resource for study, discussion and debate amongst organizational scholars and postgraduate students of organizations.
Drawing on the research of more than 50 influential international scholars, this extensive interdisciplinary survey consolidates and evaluates what is known and not known about organizations, and critically examines how we learn about and study them. Contributors include 50 influential international scholars. Contributions represent the most important contemporary perspectives on organizations, including networks, ecology and technology. Each topic is covered at three levels of organization: intraorganizational, organizational, and interorganizational. Chapters structured around five common elements for ease of use.
This book places everyday talk and role-modelling interactions at the forefront of an alternative change-leadership agenda, and introduces a number of practical approaches to help line managers and organizational specialists deliver this agenda more successfully. It is essential reading for organizational practitioners at all levels.
When Organizations and Environments was originally issued in 1979, it increased interest in evolutionary explanations of organizational change. Since then, scholars and practitioners have widely cited the book for its innovative answer to this question: Under what conditions do organizations change? Aldrich achieves theoretical integration across 13 chapters by using an evolutionary model that captures the essential features of relations between organizations and their environments. This model explains organizational change by focusing on the processes of variation, selection, retention, and struggle. The "environment," as conceived by Aldrich, does not refer simply to elements "out there"beyond a set of focal organizationsbut rather to concentrations of resources, power, political domination, and most concretely, other organizations. Scholars using Aldrich's model have examined the societal context within which founders create organizations and whether those organizations survive or fail, rise to prominence, or sink into obscurity. A preface to the reprinted edition frames the utility of this classic for tomorrow's researchers and businesspeople.
