1. Reflections on Co-evolutionary Research in Organization Science
OSWC February 4, 2010
By Johann Peter Murmann

2. Road Map for the Talk
Why are scholars such as Arie drawn to a co-evolution?
How is co-development different from co-evolution ?
What does this mean for future research efforts ?

3. Phil Yetton Travel safely and give Arie my regards
- he is a great guy who has made a DIFFERENCE, not many do.
Phil Yetton

4. Why Co-evolution Research?
1. Radically New Environments
But what happens to bureaucratic organizations when globalization, heightened turbulence, fragmentation of markets and quantum leaps in technology transform the socio-economic landscape?
Duke website on Arie’s Research in 1996
2. Managers try to shape the environment

5. Previous Research on “Coevolution”
Funk, 2009
Kaplan & Henderson, 2005
Henderson & Stern, 2004
Van Den Ended et al., 2003
Burgelman, 2002
Repenning & Sterman 2002
Eisenhardt and Galunic, 2000
McKelvey, 1999
Lewin and Volberda, 1999
Baum and McKelvey, 1999
Lewin et al., 1999
Van De Ven and Grazman, 1999 Rosenkopf and Nerkar, 1999
Koza and Lewin, 1998
Coriat and Dosi, 1998
McKelvey, 1997
Haveman and Rao, 1997
Barnett and Hansen, 1996
Levinthal and Myatt, 1995
March, 1994
Baum and Singh, 1994
Nelson, 1994
Rosenkopf and Tushman, 1994
Yates, 1993
Dosi & Kogut, 1993
Kieser, 1989
But research has not focused on the actual processes of coevolution

6. Co-development vs. Co-evolution”
Two things are developing in parallel
Technology and organization
Micro and macro level (firm evolves and industry evolves)
One thing that develops has a causal impact on a second thing that develops
Environment and organizational forms
Two things mutually influence each other’s development
Two (or more) business units (Eisenhardt and Galunic, 2000)
Each thing changes to a large extent through a selection process
Selection must not be profitability
The larger the number of individuals in a population.
Small populations on isolated islands die out.
But research has not focused on the actual processes of coevolution

7. My Definition of Coevolution
Two evolving populations coevolve
if and only if
they have a significant causal impact
on each other’s evolutionary trajectory
So let me give you my definition of coevolution.
[Present text in slide].
The intuition here is that you cannot understand the specific historical development of one population without knowing what happened in a second population and vice versa.

8. Formal Requirements for a Coevolutionary Explanation
Step 1:
Need to identify at least two populations that change through VSR processes
Population 1: firms (differing in blueprints for action)
Population 2: scientific ideas (differing in their content)
Example:
[Present text in slide]

9. Coevolutionary Analysis: Step 2
Identify causal mechanisms linking
population of [fill in]
(e. g. industrial firms - representing industries) to
(e.g. scientific ideas-representing disciplines)
and the other way around
Now I will talk about the 2nd step in a coevolutionary explanation.
[Present text in slide]

10. Step 2: Specific Mechanisms of Coevolution?
Industry
Academia ? ?
To put the task at hand in graphic form. We need to establish at list one causal mechanism development in the industry causally effects that development of academia and one causal mechanism that goes the other way around. Development in academia causally effect developments in the industry. Note that is is possible that one mechanisms goes in both directions.

11. Step 2: Specific Mechanisms of Coevolution?
Industry
Academia ?
To put the task at hand in graphic form. We need to establish at list one causal mechanism development in the industry causally effects that development of academia and one causal mechanism that goes the other way around. Development in academia causally effect developments in the industry. Note that is is possible that one mechanisms goes in both directions.

12. Mechanism 1: Lobbying Example in Dye Industry
Industry lobbied for academic chemistry to
Create laboratory space (teaching and research)
Create new of professorships
Establish research institutes
Academics lobbied for industry to change patent laws

13. Mechanism 2: Exchange of Personnel
Example:
University graduates join firms
Chemists employed in firms become professors in academic institutions
The third and it this context most important, causal mechanism, leading to coevolution is exchange of personnel. We all know that university graduates join firms. But chemists employed in firms also moved back to academia, often being appointed professors at universities. ?

14. Conclusions Co-evolution allows agency back into evolutionary theory
Decide whether you want to do co-development or co-evolution research!
Create comparative research designs: you need at least two cases
At the heart of the coevolutionary analysis advocated in this paper is the notion that human agents to some extent shape their own selection environment. This is one of the features that make coevolutionary analysis different from standard evolutionary accounts, in which environments are typically treated as givens, beyond the causal reach of the agents. However, as boundedly rational (March and Simon 1958) creatures, human agents clearly are not the full masters of their fate. Whether their actions bring about the intended results is largely determined by environmental conditions, conditions that agents frequently understand in only a limited way. Even from a coevolutionary perspective, the consequences of actions matter much more than the intentions that may have set the action in motion. The inventor of the first synthetic dye, William H. Perkin, intended to synthesize a drug against malaria. He failed to develop the drug, but when, as an unintended byproduct of his research, he found a colored substance in his test tube, he adjusted his goals and created an entirely new industry based on synthetic dyes. Coevolutionary theory brings into focus this interplay of environmental structure and agency.