News Archives

  • February 2001

    The abstracts of a new working papers by Howard Aldrich & Martha Argelia Martinez, Johann Peter Murmann, and Richard R. Nelson are posted.

  • January 2001

    The abstract of a new working paper by Bruce Fetter applying the concept of memes to human mortality reduction is now posted.

  • November 2000

    A conference took place in honor of the Richard R. Nelson at Columbia University in New York.  Click here for details on the conference and the papers presented.  You can read there Sidney Winter’s speech “The Evolution of Dick Nelson” and go on a photo tour.

  • October 2000

    Scientific American published in its October 2000 issue an article by Susan Blackmore on “The Power of Memes.” Could the major influence in human evolution have been our penchant for mimicking everything from survival skills to gaudy fashions? The author argues provocatively that a talent for handling memes—ideas and practices transmitted through imitation—is what defines our nature.  Lee Alan Dugatkin, Robert Boyd and Peter J. Richerson, and Henry Plotkin provide counterpoints. 

  • August 2000

    Evolutionary Theory in Management and Organization Theory at the Beginning of a New Millennium: A Symposium on the State of the Art and Opportunities for Future Research Evolutionary Theory.  The symposium, organized by Johann Peter Murmann, will take place on Monday, Aug 7 2000 4:10PM - 6:00PM at Sheraton Centre in Ballroom East, Toronto Canada. The speakers are Howard Aldrich, Dan Levinthal and Sid Winter. Click here for details.

  • May 2000

    From Publisher’s Weekly - Publishers Weekly
    In a world where companies are forced to adapt to an ever more quickly changing marketplace, where people from diverse backgrounds must work together in order to solve problems rapidly and the future is hard to predict, wouldn’t it be wonderful if all this complexity could work to your advantage? Axelrod (The Evolution of the Corporation) and Cohen (a consultant to the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center), both professors at the University of Michigan, aim to draw on the principles of evolutionary biology, computer science and social design to explain the functioning of “complex adaptive systems” (specifically businesses), and how to improve them. They explore such abstract issues as whether to encourage variation in a rapidly changing situation (whether it refers to a diversity of products or problem-solving approaches, variety is defined as “the raw material for adaptation”); the impact of manipulating interactions (with respect to time as well as both physical and conceptual space) in an organization; and how to select and support the most viable individuals, teams, systems or business strategies
    that emerge.

  • May 2000

    The abstract of a new working paper by Maurizzio Zollo and Sidney G. Winter is now posted.

  • April 2000

    The abstracts of new working papers by Louis Galambos and Richard Nelson & Bhaven Sampat are now posted.

  • March 2000

    Design Rules, Vol.1: The Power of Modularity by Carliss Baldwin and Kim Clark

    From the Publisher: We live in a dynamic economic and commercial world, surrounded by objects of remarkable complexity and power. In many industries, changes in products and technologies have brought with them new kinds of firms and forms of organization. We are discovering news ways of structuring work, of bringing buyers and sellers together, and of creating and using market information. Although our fast-moving economy often seems to be outside of our influence or control, human beings create the things that create the market forces. Devices, software programs, production processes, contracts, firms, and markets are all the fruit of purposeful action: they are designed. Using the computer industry as an example, Carliss Y. Baldwin and Kim B. Clark develop a powerful theory of design and industrial evolution. They argue that the industry has experienced previously unimaginable levels of innovation and growth because it embraced the concept of modularity, building complex products from smaller subsystems that can be designed independently yet function together as a whole. Modularity freed designers to experiment with different approaches, as long as they obeyed the established design rules. Drawing upon the literatures of industrial organization, real options, and computer architecture, the authors provide insight into the forces of change that drive today’s economy.

  • February 2000

    We are launching our book review feature.

  • January 2000

    Abstracts of important new working papers by Joel Mokyr are now posted.

  • December 1999

    The first book that we will review is Howard Aldrich’s new oeuvre “Organizations Evolving.” (For a table of contents, scroll down to the new book announcements.) I have asked two very competent scholars to share with us their views on Aldrich’s new book. Once we receive their reviews, Howard Aldrich will have the opportunity to respond. The reviews and the potential response will be posted sometime in January and we will then open up a debate on the book in the discussion forum. If you are interested in the world of organizations, you may want to read the book over the break and contribute your views on the book in the discussion forum. Happy Holidays.

  • November 1999

    The Demography of Corporations and Industries

    by Glenn R. Carroll and Michael T. Hannan
    The publisher’s preview: The Demography of Corporations and Industries is the first book to present the demographic approach to organizational studies in its entirety. It examines the theory, models, methods, and data used in corporate demographic research. Carroll and Hannan explore the processes by which corporate populations change over time, including organizational founding, growth, decline, structural transformation, and mortality. They review and synthesize the major theoretical mechanisms of corporate demography, ranging from aging and size dependence to population segregation and density dependence. The book also explores some selected implications of corporate demography for public policy, including employment and regulation.  Click on the title for a table of contents. Read Boyan Jovanovic’s Review in the JEL.

  • November 1999

    etss.net is evolving…One of the features that we will offer in the future is reviews of books and articles. We will start with books that are just coming out and later review classics.  Check out the abstracts of important new working papers by David Hull and Geoffrey Hodgson

  • October 1999

    Sources of Industrial Leadership: Studies of Seven Industries.

    David Mowery and Richard R. Nelson
    This book describes and analyzes how seven major high-tech industries evolved in the USA, Japan, and Western Europe. The industries covered are machine tools, organic chemical products, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, computers, semiconductors, and software. In each of these industries, firms located in one or a very few countries became the clear technological and commercial leaders. In number of cases, the locus of leadership changed, sometimes more than once, over the course of the histories studied. The locus of the book is on the key factors that supported the emergence of national leadership in each industry, and the reasons behind the shifts when they occurred. Special attention is given to the national policies which helped to create, or sustain, industrial leadership.  Click on the title for a table of contents.  Read Paul L. Robertson’s Review on eh.net.

  • October 1999

    Unto Others: The Evolution & Psychology of Unselfish Behavior by Elliot Sober & David Sloan Wilson

    In Unto Others, philosopher Elliott Sober and biologist David Sloan Wilson bravely attempt to reconcile altruism, both evolutionary and psychological, with the scientific discoveries that seem to portray nature as red in tooth and claw. The first half of the book deals with the evolutionary objection to altruism. For altruistic behavior to be produced by natural selection, it must be possible for natural selection to act on groups—but conventional wisdom holds that group selection was conclusively debunked by George Williams in Adaptation and Natural Selection. Sober and Wilson nevertheless defend group selection, instructively reviewing the arguments against it and citing important work that relies on it. They then discuss group selection in human evolution, testing their conclusions against the anthropological literature.
    In the second half of the book, the question is whether any desires are truly altruistic. Sober and Wilson painstakingly examine psychological evidence and philosophical arguments for the existence of altruism, ultimately concluding that neither psychology nor philosophy is likely to decide the question. Fortunately, evolutionary biology comes to the rescue. Sober and Wilson speculate that creatures with truly altruistic desires are reproductively fitter than creatures without—altruists, in short, make better parents than do egoists.
    Rich in information and insight, Unto Others is a book that will be seriously considered by biologists, philosophers, anthropologists, and psychologists alike. The interested amateur may find it difficult in places but worth the effort overall.—Glenn Branch

  • September 1999

    I will be teaching a Ph.D. seminar next April, which I have tentatively titled “Evolutionary Theories of Organization.” In preparation for the seminar, I started to look for a place on the web that collects information about Evolutionary Theories in the Social Sciences. Because I could not find a comprehensive web site, I decided that it would be beneficial to create such a resource in time for my seminar in March 2000. The outline of the web site is now in place, allowing you to imagine what the site can look like when it is done. Much of the “data” still needs to be filled in. I invite you to make suggestions about the design of this site and, above all, to send me information and links that should be part of the web site. My e-mail address is: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) Let’s make this a very useful tool for everyone who is interested in evolutionary thought in the social sciences.

  • May 1999

    Variations in Organization Science: In Honor of Donald T. Campbell

    If you are interested in evolutionary theories of organizations, this is a new collection of essays that you want to take a look at. Click on the cover for a table of contents. Joel Baum and Bill Mckelvy have pulled togehter some excellent essays that take stock of Campbell’s contributions to the study of management. See also the bibliography of etss.net to find the most important essays of Campbell on evolutionary theory.

  • Important Book

    Evolutionary Innovations: The Business of Biotechnology by Maureen D. McKelvey

    This book examines the initial commercial uses of genetic engineering. Genetic engineering is one of the most modern, controversial and dynamic of the science based technologies. It is not an object but a set of techniques or way of doing things. The development of these techniques from the 1970s onwards illustrates the changing relationships between universities and firms and between basic science and research oriented towards commercial uses. The main focus of the book is on two firms - Genentech in the United States and Kabi in Sweden and their activities and ‘knowledge-seeking’ behavior in the development of human growth hormone and how those ran in parallel with university science. As well as providing a remarkably clear account of these developments (the book includes a chapter on the basics of biotechnology for the lay person), McKelvey also provides a fresh contribution to our understanding of innovation processes by using the evolutionary metaphor to interpret patterns of change where novelty, transmission, and selection are important elements, and where the knowledge-seeking behavior of firms and other agents are critical for survival and development. The book will be of considerable interest to a wide audience concerned to understand the complexities of innovation processes in the ‘knowledge society’ - management and organization researchers, economists, policy advisers, managers and strategies responsible for turning knowledge into product and profit.

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