{"title":"New Developments in Evolutionary Innovation","authors":"G. Cattani, Mariano Mastrogiorgio","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780198837091.003.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780198837091.003.0001","url":null,"abstract":"The publication of ‘An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change’ by Nelson and Winter has had a major impact on economics and related fields such as innovation and strategy. All of these fields have developed owing to recent re-examinations and extensions of evolutionary theory. A paradigm that underlies several studies in this tradition is the concept of neo-Darwinian evolution—the idea that the unit of the evolutionary process (e.g. a technological artefact) is subject to a dynamic of variation, selection, and retention leading to adaptation to a predefined function. This book refers to the frameworks of punctuated equilibrium, speciation, and exaptation, which, despite their significant influence in evolutionary biology, have been reflected only partially in evolutionary approaches to economics, innovation, and strategy. This chapter introduces the book’s aim to fill this gap, and outlines the approaches and perspectives of each of the chapters.","PeriodicalId":371302,"journal":{"name":"New Developments in Evolutionary Innovation","volume":"68 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127310381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"New Frontiers","authors":"G. Cattani, Mariano Mastrogiorgio","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780198837091.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780198837091.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"Evolutionary thinking has grown significantly and has had a profound impact on various fields such as economics, strategy, and technological innovation. An important paradigm that underlies the evolutionary theory of innovation is neo-Darwinian evolution. According to this paradigm, evolution is gradualist and is based on the mechanisms of variation, selection, and retention. Starting from the 1970s, new theoretical advancements in evolutionary biology have recognized the central role of punctuated equilibrium, speciation, and exaptation in evolution and of Woesian dynamics. However, despite their significant influence in evolutionary biology, these advancements have been reflected only partially in evolutionary approaches to economics, strategy, and technological innovation. This chapter reviews these advancements and explores their key implications for innovation, such as the role of serendipity and unpre-stateability leading to disequilibrium in economics systems, and the importance of adopting an option-based logic during the innovation process.","PeriodicalId":371302,"journal":{"name":"New Developments in Evolutionary Innovation","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114923366","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Conclusions","authors":"G. Cattani, Mariano Mastrogiorgio","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198837091.003.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198837091.003.0011","url":null,"abstract":"We began this book by highlighting that, since the 1970s, several important developments have profoundly changed the field of evolutionary biology. Of particular interest here are the concepts of punctuated equilibrium, speciation, and exaptation and their centrality for understanding the emergence of novelty. Despite their influence in evolutionary biology, these advancements have received only limited attention in evolutionary approaches to economics, innovation, and strategy. By reviewing and contextualizing these advancements within the current evolutionary debate in economics, innovation, and strategy, our goal was to show how they can shed new light on some of the key assumptions of evolutionary theory, such as the idea that economic systems are in a continual state of disequilibrium. In much of the existing literature, for instance, innovation is treated as an activity that aims to respond to a direct type of question: given a problem, what is the solution? This implies that a new technology is usually ‘a working architecture of parts and modules that performs a specific function that permits the satisfaction of a predefined need’ (...","PeriodicalId":371302,"journal":{"name":"New Developments in Evolutionary Innovation","volume":"15 5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125625888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}