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Evolutionary Processes and Organizational Adaptation
Author: Evolutionary Processes and Organizational Adaptation
Author: Daniel A. LevinthalPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199684944
Category : Management
Languages : en
Pages : 158
Book Description
How do firms adapt? Is it through rational choice and intentionality, or rather a process of evolutionary dynamics? Using the ideas of Gregor Mendel as a touchstone, this book aims to construct a middle-ground between these two conceptions and provide a new framework for understanding the adaptive dynamics of organizations.
Evolutionary Processes and Organizational Adaptation
Author: Daniel A. LevinthalPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192634100
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 152
Book Description
How do firms adapt? There are two basic starting points from which to answer that question. One is premised on ideas of rational choice and intentionality, while the other is a process of evolutionary dynamics. Both are well-defined and operate as powerful intellectual attractors. Using the ideas of Gregor Mendel as a useful touchstone, this book aims to construct a middle-ground between these two conceptions. The image of the "Mendelian" executive shows how we might effectively balance the ideas of godlike rational design on the one hand and evolutionary dynamics on the other. The perspective developed in this book is anchored on the two key primitives of path-dependence and artificial selection. The intentionality of the Mendelian executive allows for the conscious exploration of opportunities, rather than the happenstance of random variants, yet the constraining forces of path-dependence may lead these moves to adjacent spaces. This perspective also highlights the role of intentionality with respect to the selection and culling of strategic initiatives. The organization operates an “artificial selection” environment, as firms receive profits and losses and, in turn, mediate how these environmental outcomes are projected onto underlying elements and actors within the organization. In this spirit, exploration can be considered not merely as the distance in the underlying behavior from current action, but also as changes in the dimensions of merit by which initiatives are judged. The Mendelian executive is a catalyst and cultivator of promising pathways to unknown futures.
Resource-Based and Evolutionary Theories of the Firm
Author: Cynthia A. MontgomeryPublisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461522013
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
Resource-Based and Evolutionary Theories of the Firm: Towards a Synthesis explores the intersection of evolutionary theories of the firm with an emergent body of research in the field of strategic management that has been broadly referred to as the `resource-based view of the firm'. The volume approaches strategic questions from several vantage points, thereby fostering a useful cross-fertilization of ideas. The views presented spring from a variety of sources, namely the principles of strategic management, organisation economics, and population ecology.
Adaptation and Natural Selection
Author: George Christopher WilliamsPublisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691185506
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335
Book Description
Biological evolution is a fact—but the many conflicting theories of evolution remain controversial even today. When Adaptation and Natural Selection was first published in 1966, it struck a powerful blow against those who argued for the concept of group selection—the idea that evolution acts to select entire species rather than individuals. Williams’s famous work in favor of simple Darwinism over group selection has become a classic of science literature, valued for its thorough and convincing argument and its relevance to many fields outside of biology. Now with a new foreword by Richard Dawkins, Adaptation and Natural Selection is an essential text for understanding the nature of scientific debate.
The Origins of Order
Author: Stuart A. KauffmanPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199826676
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 958
Book Description
Stuart Kauffman here presents a brilliant new paradigm for evolutionary biology, one that extends the basic concepts of Darwinian evolution to accommodate recent findings and perspectives from the fields of biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics. The book drives to the heart of the exciting debate on the origins of life and maintenance of order in complex biological systems. It focuses on the concept of self-organization: the spontaneous emergence of order that is widely observed throughout nature Kauffman argues that self-organization plays an important role in the Darwinian process of natural selection. Yet until now no systematic effort has been made to incorporate the concept of self-organization into evolutionary theory. The construction requirements which permit complex systems to adapt are poorly understood, as is the extent to which selection itself can yield systems able to adapt more successfully. This book explores these themes. It shows how complex systems, contrary to expectations, can spontaneously exhibit stunning degrees of order, and how this order, in turn, is essential for understanding the emergence and development of life on Earth. Topics include the new biotechnology of applied molecular evolution, with its important implications for developing new drugs and vaccines; the balance between order and chaos observed in many naturally occurring systems; new insights concerning the predictive power of statistical mechanics in biology; and other major issues. Indeed, the approaches investigated here may prove to be the new center around which biological science itself will evolve. The work is written for all those interested in the cutting edge of research in the life sciences.
Evolutionary Selection Processes
Author: Ewa Stańczyk-HugietPublisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1787696855
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 195
Book Description
The book explains managerial intervention and its effects on the strategic adaptation mode. It introduces the concept of primary selection (inside an organization) with endogenous mechanisms and explains the strategic process via selecting organizational routines. The book goes beyond the classical selection exposing its multilevel character.
Pillars of Evolution
Author: Douglas W. MorrisPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198568797
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 281
Book Description
This book provides a perspective on adaptive evolution.
Relentless Evolution
Author: John N. ThompsonPublisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022601889X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 510
Book Description
At a glance, most species seem adapted to the environment in which they live. Yet species relentlessly evolve, and populations within species evolve in different ways. Evolution, as it turns out, is much more dynamic than biologists realized just a few decades ago. In Relentless Evolution, John N. Thompson explores why adaptive evolution never ceases and why natural selection acts on species in so many different ways. Thompson presents a view of life in which ongoing evolution is essential and inevitable. Each chapter focuses on one of the major problems in adaptive evolution: How fast is evolution? How strong is natural selection? How do species co-opt the genomes of other species as they adapt? Why does adaptive evolution sometimes lead to more, rather than less, genetic variation within populations? How does the process of adaptation drive the evolution of new species? How does coevolution among species continually reshape the web of life? And, more generally, how are our views of adaptive evolution changing? Relentless Evolution draws on studies of all the major forms of life—from microbes that evolve in microcosms within a few weeks to plants and animals that sometimes evolve in detectable ways within a few decades. It shows evolution not as a slow and stately process, but rather as a continual and sometimes frenetic process that favors yet more evolutionary change.
Biochemical Adaptation
Author: Pater W. HochachkaPublisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400855411
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 559
Book Description
This book discusses biochemical adaptation to environments from freezing polar oceans to boiling hot springs, and under hydrostatic pressures up to 1,000 times that at sea level. Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.