Of fruit flies, toads, and other hopeful monsters: thoughts on Levinthal’s Evolutionary Processes and Organizational Adaptation

Journal of Organization Design - Tập 11 - Trang 91-94 - 2022
Aseem Kaul1
1Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship Department, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA

Tóm tắt

Dan Levinthal’s exciting new book, Evolutionary Processes and Organizational Adaptation, fundamentally expands our understanding of how executives enable organizational adaptation, highlighting their role in creating an artificial selection environment within the organization to accelerate learning. In this short essay, I review some key aspects of Levinthal’s arguments, especially his reconceptualization of exploration as the opening up of new performance dimensions. I then highlight some implications of his ideas for research on entrepreneurship, nonmarket strategy, and stakeholder theory that warrant further development.

Tài liệu tham khảo

Adner R, Levinthal D (2008) Doing versus seeing: acts of exploitation and perceptions of exploration. Strateg Entrepreneurship J 2(1):43-52. https://doi.org/10.1002/sej.19 Ahuja G, Capron L, Lenox M, Yao DA (2018) Strategy and the institutional envelope. Strategy Sci 3(2):ii–x Barney JB (2018) Why resource-based theory’s model of profit appropriation must incorporate a stakeholder perspective. Strateg Manag J 39(13):3305–3325 Battilana J, Lee M (2014) Advancing research on hybrid organizing—insights from the study of social enterprises. Acad Manag Ann 8(1):397–441 Battilana J, Obloj T, Pache AC, Sengul M (2022) Beyond shareholder value maximization: accounting for financial/social trade-offs in dual-purpose companies. Acad Manag Rev 47(2):237–258 Baumann O, Wu B (2022) The many dimensions of research on designing flat firms. J Organ Des 11(1):1-3. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41469-022-00118-6 Burns BL, Barney JB, Angus RW, Herrick HN (2016) Enrolling stakeholders under conditions of risk and uncertainty. Strateg Entrep J 10(1):97–106 Camuffo A, Cordova A, Gambardella A, Spina C (2020a) A scientific approach to entrepreneurial decision making: Evidence from a randomized control trial. Manage Sci 66(2):564–586 Camuffo A, Gambardella A, Spina C (2020b) Small changes with big impact: experimental evidence of a scientific approach to the decision-making of entrepreneurial firms. SSRN Working Paper Dorobantu S, Kaul A, Zelner B (2017) Nonmarket strategy research through the lens of new institutional economics: an integrative review and future directions. Strateg Manag J 38(1):114–140 Felin T, Zenger TR (2009) Entrepreneurs as theorists: on the origins of collective beliefs and novel strategies. Strateg Entrep J 3(2):127–146 Felin T, Zenger TR (2017) The theory-based view: economic actors as theorists. Strategy Sci 2(4):258–271 Foss NJ, Klein PG, Kor YY, Mahoney JT (2008) Entrepreneurship, subjectivism, and the resource-based view: toward a new synthesis. Strateg Entrep J 2(1):73–94 Gambardella A, Ganco M, Honoré F (2015) Using what you know: patented knowledge in incumbent firms and employee entrepreneurship. Organ Sci 26(2):456–474 Gavetti G, Helfat CE, Marengo L (2017) Searching, shaping, and the quest for superior performance. Strategy Sci 2(3):194–209 Helfat CE (2021) What does firm shaping of markets really mean? Strategy Sci 6(4):360–370 Kaul A (2013) Entrepreneurial action, unique assets, and appropriation risk: firms as a means of appropriating profit from capability creation. Organ Sci 24(6):1765–1781 Kaul A (2021) Putting the horse back before the cart: designing strategic social enterprises. J Organ Des 10(3):103–108 Kaul A, Ganco M, Raffiee J (2022) When subjective judgments lead to spinouts: employee entrepreneurship under uncertainty, firm-specificity, and appropriability. Acad Manag Rev. forthcoming. Available online at: https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2020.0113 Klein PG (2008) Opportunity discovery, entrepreneurial action, and economic organization. Strateg Entrep J 2(3):175–190 Klepper S, Thompson P (2010) Disagreements and intra-industry spinoffs. Int J Ind Organ 28(5):526–538 Levinthal DA (2021) Evolutionary processes and organizational adaptation: a mendelian perspective on strategic management. Oxford University Press, Oxford McGahan AM (2021) Integrating insights from the resource-based view of the firm into the new stakeholder theory. J Manag 47(7):1734–1756 Obloj T, Sengul M (2020) What do multiple objectives really mean for performance? Empirical evidence from the French manufacturing sector. Strateg Manag J 41(13):2518–2547 Ostrom E (1990) Governing the commons: the evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Ostrom E (2010) Beyond markets and states: polycentric governance of complex economic systems. Am Econ Rev 100(3):641–672 Zellweger TM, Zenger TR (2022) Entrepreneurs as scientists: a pragmatist approach to producing value out of uncertainty. Acad Manag Rev. forthcoming. Available online at: https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2022.0163