New Frontiers

Author(s):  
Gino Cattani ◽  
Mariano Mastrogiorgio

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.

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. However, despite their significant influence in evolutionary biology, these advancements have been reflected only partially in evolutionary approaches to economics, strategy, and technological innovation. The aim of this book is to review these advancements and explore their implications, with a particular emphasis on the role of serendipity and unpre-stateability in innovation and novelty creation.


Author(s):  
Gino Cattani ◽  
Mariano Mastrogiorgio

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.


Author(s):  
Gino Cattani ◽  
Mariano Mastrogiorgio

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’ (...


Author(s):  
Alexander Vucinich

The Russian scientific community welcomed Darwin’s evolutionary theory and made it a basis of research in a wide range of biological sciences. Russian evolutionary studies in embryology, paleontology, microbiology and pathology attracted international attention. The vast scope of Darwin’s popularity in Russia was dramatically manifested in 1909, on the occasion of the national celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great English scientist and the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. All universities, naturalist societies, and many newspapers and popular journals took part in the celebration, which produced a hundred praiseful publications on Darwinian themes. University philosophers, steeped in metaphysical idealism and spiritualism, linked Darwinism to what they called ‘modern scientific materialism’ and rejected it wholly. They were strongly predisposed to welcome modern revivals of metaphysical vitalism. Freelance philosophers, usually associated with heterodox ideological movements and influenced by Auguste Comte’s positivism or various modern neopositivist and Neo-Kantian currents, credited Darwinism with making science a major topic of modern philosophy. A new discipline, known as ‘scientific philosophy’, rapidly developing in the West, made its first appearance in Russia. In the Soviet Union, Darwin’s evolutionary theory followed a course of cataclysmic ruptures. During the 1920s, Soviet scientists made significant contributions to the study of the role of the genetic environment in biological evolution and helped set the stage for an evolutionary synthesis of Darwinism and genetics. The Stalinist era (1929–53) marked a drastic departure from the prevalent currents in evolutionary biology. It was dominated by the rise of Lysenkoism, a pseudo-science identified as ‘creative Darwinism’, and was guided by a diluted version of the Lamarckian idea of evolution as a product of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Lysenkoism rejected the Darwinian conception of natural selection, downgraded the role of physico-chemical analysis in biology, and paid no attention to molecular biology. In 1948 Lysenkoism was officially recognized as the Marxist theory of evolution. Under Lysenko’s influence, genetics was proclaimed a ‘bourgeois science’ and was made illegal. The downfall of Lysenkoism in 1964 brought the re-establishment of genetics, a full-scale return to true Darwinism, and a re-intensified interest in ‘evolutionary synthesis’.


Vestnik NSUEM ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 138-159
Author(s):  
S. P. Petrov

Firms incur technological innovation costs to create and retain competitive advantages on market. It seems reasonable that innovation process performance depends on amount of costs on it. According to Structure – Conduct – Performance paradigm this dependency means that firms conduct influence on market performance. But this link is much more nuanced because there is a significant influence of features of industries in which firms operate. In Russia technological innovation costs lead to a high results in some industries and in other of them this link is weak like innovation intensity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael K Skinner ◽  
Eric E Nilsson

Abstract The current evolutionary biology theory primarily involves genetic alterations and random DNA sequence mutations to generate the phenotypic variation required for Darwinian natural selection to act. This neo-Darwinian evolution is termed the Modern Evolution Synthesis and has been the primary paradigm for nearly 100 years. Although environmental factors have a role in neo-Darwinian natural selection, Modern Evolution Synthesis does not consider environment to impact the basic molecular processes involved in evolution. An Extended Evolutionary Synthesis has recently developed that extends the modern synthesis to consider non-genetic processes. Over the past few decades, environmental epigenetics research has been demonstrated to regulate genetic processes and directly generate phenotypic variation independent of genetic sequence alterations. Therefore, the environment can on a molecular level through non-genetic (i.e. epigenetic) mechanisms directly influence phenotypic variation, genetic variation, inheritance and adaptation. This direct action of the environment to alter phenotype that is heritable is a neo-Lamarckian concept that can facilitate neo-Darwinian (i.e. Modern Synthesis) evolution. The integration of genetics, epigenetics, Darwinian theory, Lamarckian concepts, environment, and epigenetic inheritance provides a paradigm shift in evolution theory. The role of environmental-induced epigenetic transgenerational inheritance in evolution is presented to describe a more unified theory of evolutionary biology.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Ade Rahma ◽  
Lisa Nabawi ◽  
Ronni Andri Wijaya

The purpose of this study is to analyze the role of institutional leadership, tax planning and foreign board of commissioners on firm value. The population in this study were 615 companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2015-2017. The sample was chosen using purposive sampling to get a total sample of 325 companies with a total of 975 observations of company data. The results of this study indicate that institutional leadership and tax planning have no role in increasing company value. While the foreign board of commissioners showed a significant influence on the value of the company. This proves that there is a need for diversity in the structure of the board that can trigger an increase in the value of the company. In addition, the presence of a foreign board is needed for the progress of the companyKeywords: Investment decisions; funding decisions; dividend policy; company value


Author(s):  
Armando Silva

In this study I test the importance of several Human Resource variables to the innovation capacity of portuguese firms but also the effects that the innovation process generates on Human Resources. A branch of the innovation literature states that the ability of firms to innovate relies on an innovative capacity, which, in turn, depends on several factors, both internal and external to enterprises. One of those factors is the effort of firms to train their personnel specifically in order to enable them to innovate. The present test is applied to 4818 Portuguese enterprises for the period 2002-2004 through the use of the fourth Community Innovation Survey data. In order to evaluate the contribution of Human Resources to innovation I have estimated several knowledge Production Functions, mainly using probits and tobits. In that framework it is assumed that innovation depends on some inputs (as the training of personnel) and on information-flows from the existing knowledge stock (as clients). I have found significant the role of personnel training for the innovative process of Portuguese firms. Moreover, I also found that the lack of qualified personnel hinged critically more innovative performance of firms and, in addition, it is noticed that the improvement of productivuty (cost reduction) was the main effect of innovation in Portuguese firms.


Author(s):  
Yesi Mutia Basri ◽  
Rosliana Rosliana

This research aim to examine the influence of personal background, political background, and council budget knowledge towards the role of DPRD on region financial control. This research is motivated by the fact that individual background will effect to individual behavior on political activity. Dependent variables in this research are personal background, political background, and council budges knowledge towards the role of DPRD on region financial control Independent variables are the role of DPRD on region financial control in planning, implementing, and responsibility steps. The data in this research consist of primary data that taken from questionnaires distributed directly to respondents. The collected are from 34 Respondents that members of DPRD at Pekanbaru. Hypothesis of this research are examine by using Multivariate Analysis of Variances (MANOVA). The result of this research HI personal background political background and budget knowledge have significant influence toward the role of DPRD on region financial control in planning steps.H2 personal background, politico I background and budget knowledge have no significant influence toward the role of DPRD on region financial control in Implementing steps. H3 personal background political background and budget knowledge have no significant influence toward the role of DPRD on region financial control in Controlling steps.


Author(s):  
Andrew Briggs ◽  
Hans Halvorson ◽  
Andrew Steane

Two scientists and a philosopher aim to show how science both enriches and is enriched by Christian faith. The text is written around four themes: 1. God is a being to be known, not a hypothesis to be tested; 2. We set a high bar on what constitutes good argument; 3. Uncertainty is OK; 4. We are allowed to open up the window that the natural world offers us. This is not a work of apologetics. Rather, the text takes an overview of various themes and gives reactions and responses, intended to place science correctly as a valued component of the life of faith. The difference between philosophical analysis and theological reflection is expounded. Questions of human identity are addressed from philosophy, computer science, quantum physics, evolutionary biology and theological reflection. Contemporary physics reveals the subtle and open nature of physical existence, and offers lessons in how to learn and how to live with incomplete knowledge. The nature and role of miracles is considered. The ‘argument from design’ is critiqued, especially arguments from fine-tuning. Logical derivation from impersonal facts is not an appropriate route to a relationship of mutual trust. Mainstream evolutionary biology is assessed to be a valuable component of our understanding, but no exploratory process can itself fully account for the nature of what is discovered. To engage deeply in science is to seek truth and to seek a better future; it is also an activity of appreciation, as one may appreciate a work of art.


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