Summary
Contents
Subject index
`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
Introducing Recent Debates in Biology into the Checklist Appraisal Grid for Evolutionary Models
Introducing Recent Debates in Biology into the Checklist Appraisal Grid for Evolutionary Models
If blushing turns out to be an adaptation affected by sexual selection in humans, it will not help us to understand why blood is red. The immediate utility of an organic structure often says nothing at all about the reasons for its being … All 12 combinations [of Cerion's shell whiteness] can be identified in Bahamian population, but would it be fruitful to ask why – in the sense of optimal design rather than historical contingency – Cerion from eastern Long Island evolved one solution, and Cerion from Acklins Island another? (Gould and Lewontin, 1979: 593)
Chapter 3 emphasized that our ...
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