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The Evolution of Organizations: Suggestions from Complexity Theory About the Interplay Between Natural Selection and Adaptation

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Human Relations

Abstract

There has been much debate in the managementliterature between neo-Darwinists (who believe in thenatural selection of populations of organizations) andadaptationists (who contend that changes in organization structure and behavior occur in response to theenvironment). The general thesis of neo-Darwinism isthat species are blindly selected for survival by theenvironment. The latest empirical support for the dominant neo-Darwinism perspective adopted bymost biologists is based primarily on the experimentsconducted by Salvador Luria who claims to haveconclusively demonstrated that genes mutate randomly.Recently, however, biologists have re-examined Luria sresearch methods and, after replications of hisexperiments, now question some aspects of the validityof his results. Moreover, there is now new researchwhich provides support for the earlier adaptationistposition, namely, the existence of evolutionary driversand directors existing within self-organizing systems.Of particular importance to the present study is the experimental indication thatself-organizing systems play a conscious role in theirown evolution. We propose that similar mechanisms orprocesses operate in organizational adaptation, thuspointing toward a theoretical modification ofneo-Darwinism that embraces both adaptation and naturalselection in a general, unified theory.

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Authors
  1. Michael C. White
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  2. Daniel B. Marin
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  3. Deborah V. Brazeal
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  4. William H. Friedman
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White, M.C., Marin, D.B., Brazeal, D.V. et al. The Evolution of Organizations: Suggestions from Complexity Theory About the Interplay Between Natural Selection and Adaptation. Human Relations 50, 1383–1401 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1016959212691

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