Abatecola, G., Breslin, D. orcid.org/0000-0001-8309-7095 and Kask, J. (2020) Do organizations really co-evolve? Problematizing co-evolutionary change in management and organization studies. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 155. 119964. ISSN 0040-1625
Abstract
This conceptual article discusses and, from some aspects, also problematizes the state-of-the-art regarding co-evolutionary research in Management and Organization Studies (MOS). Analyzing 76 characteristic studies published since 2000, we address three simple, significant questions: What co-evolves? What causal relationships are considered? What are the theoretical processes? The motivation behind our contribution is twofold: on the one hand, the turn of the century witnessed the remarkable growth of inquiries which, at face value, have claimed to be “co-evolutionary”; but, on the other hand, specific analyses about where this fast-growing meta-theoretical perspective on social change is now, and where it could move towards in the future, are still missing in MOS. Our study reveals increasing heterogeneity in defining what co-evolves and the associated causal relationships. It also reveals the prevailing scarcity in explaining what processes substantially characterize co-evolution in MOS. With a view to shaping the future direction of research in this area, we propose four core principles that theoretically set the co-evolutionary project apart.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 Elsevier Inc. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Article available under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
Keywords: | Co-evolution; Adaptation; Management; Organization; Change; Conceptual |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Management School (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 16 Mar 2020 11:10 |
Last Modified: | 13 Sep 2021 00:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier BV |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.techfore.2020.119964 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:158474 |