IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cai/recosp/reco_542_0355.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Mystery of the Routine. The Darwinian Destiny of An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change

Author

Listed:
  • Geoffrey M. Hodgson

Abstract

The three core Darwinian principles of variety, inheritance and selection are found in Nelson and Winter?s Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (1982). Is the application of these core Darwinian principles purely analogical, or does it also relate to ontological communalities between social and biological evolution? Why do Nelson and Winter describe their theory as ?Lamarckian? despite this strong Darwinian content? This ?Lamarckian? inclination is related to their imperfect and inconsistent definitions of their core concept of ?routine?. It is argued here that a routine must be treated as a genotype rather than a (behavioural) phenotype. Following Winter (1987), it is also argued that the use of Darwinian principles in economics relates to general features that are common to both social and biological systems. This permits consideration of the routine as a replicator in a broad Darwinian analysis. A definition of replication is taken from the recent literature on cultural evolution and applied to the key concepts of (individual) habit and (organisational) routine. An ontologically-grounded Darwinian and evolutionary economics leads us to a more detailed discussion of the mechanisms of replication, as well as the sources of variety and the processes of selection.

Suggested Citation

  • Geoffrey M. Hodgson, 2003. "The Mystery of the Routine. The Darwinian Destiny of An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 54(2), pages 355-384.
    • Handle: RePEc:cai:recosp:reco_542_0355
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cairn.info/load_pdf.php?ID_ARTICLE=RECO_542_0355
    Download Restriction: free
    File URL: http://www.cairn.info/revue-economique-2003-2-page-355.htm
    Download Restriction: free
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Geoffrey M. Hodgson, 2003. "John R. Commons and the Foundations of Institutional Economics," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 547-576, September.
    2. Hirshleifer, Jack, 1977. "Economics from a Biological Viewpoint," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(1), pages 1-52, April.
    3. Arthur J. Robson, 2001. "The Biological Basis of Economic Behavior," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(1), pages 11-33, March.
    4. Richard R. Nelson & Sidney G. Winter, 2002. "Evolutionary Theorizing in Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 23-46, Spring.
    5. Geoffrey M. Hodgson, 2002. "Darwinism in economics: from analogy to ontology," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 259-281.
    6. Arthur J. Robson, 2001. "Why Would Nature Give Individuals Utility Functions?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(4), pages 900-929, August.
    7. Geoffrey M. Hodgson, 2001. "Is Social Evolution Lamarckian or Darwinian?," Chapters, in: John Laurent & John Nightingale (ed.), Darwinism and Evolutionary Economics, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Nicolao Bonini & Massimo Egidi, 1999. "Cognitive traps in individual and organizational behavior : some empirical evidence," Revue d'Économie Industrielle, Programme National Persée, vol. 88(1), pages 153-186.
    9. Nathalie Lazaric & Blandine Denis, 2001. "How and why routines change: some lessons from the articulation of knowledge with ISO 9002 implementation in the food industry," Post-Print hal-00457127, HAL.
    10. Sidney G. Winter, 1971. "Satisficing, Selection, and the Innovating Remnant," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 85(2), pages 237-261.
    11. Michael D. Cohen & Paul Bacdayan, 1994. "Organizational Routines Are Stored as Procedural Memory: Evidence from a Laboratory Study," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 5(4), pages 554-568, November.
    12. Cohen, Michael D, et al, 1996. "Routines and Other Recurring Action Patterns of Organizations: Contemporary Research Issues," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 5(3), pages 653-698.
    13. Jack J. Vromen, 2001. "The Human Agent in Evolutionary Economics," Chapters, in: John Laurent & John Nightingale (ed.), Darwinism and Evolutionary Economics, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Richard R. Nelson, 1995. "Recent Evolutionary Theorizing about Economic Change," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 48-90, March.
    15. Becker, Gary S, 1976. "Altruism, Egoism, and Genetic Fitness: Economics and Sociobiology," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 817-826, September.
    16. Nathalie Lazaric, 2000. "The role of routines, rules and habits in collective learning: some epistemological and ontological considerations," Post-Print hal-00457133, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Laurent Antonczak & Thierry Burger-Helmchen, 2022. "Creativity on the Move: Nexus of Technology, Slack and Social Complexities," Post-Print hal-03631857, HAL.
    2. Elena Tsepilova S. & Е. Цепилова С. & В. Горобинская И., 2017. "ИНСТИТУЦИОНАЛЬНЫЙ ПОДХОД К ХАРАКТЕРИСТИКЕ НАЛОГОВОЙ ПОЛИТИКИ ГОСУДАРСТВА // Institutional Approach to the Government Fiscal Policy," Экономика. Налоги. Право // Economics, taxes & law, ФГОБУ "Финансовый университет при Правительстве Российской Федерации" // Financial University under The Government of Russian Federation, vol. 10(2), pages 134-141.
    3. Markus C. Becker & Nathalie Lazaric & Richard R. Nelson & Sidney G. Winter, 2005. "Applying organizational routines in understanding organizational change," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 14(5), pages 775-791, October.
    4. Beckert, Jens & Ebbinghaus, Bernhard & Hassel, Anke & Manow, Philip (ed.), 2006. "Transformationen des Kapitalismus: Festschrift für Wolfgang Streeck zum sechzigsten Geburtstag," Schriften aus dem Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung Köln, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, volume 57, number 57.
    5. Martijn van der Steen, 2011. "The emergence and change of management accounting routines," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 24(4), pages 502-547, May.
    6. Christian Cordes, 2006. "Darwinism in economics: from analogy to continuity," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 16(5), pages 529-541, December.
    7. Ron A. Boschma & Jesse W.J. Weltevreden, 2005. "B2c e-commerce adoption in inner cities: An evolutionary perspective," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 0503, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Feb 2005.
    8. Dehua Gao & Flaminio Squazzoni & Xiuquan Deng, 2018. "The Intertwining Impact of Intraorganizational and Routine Networks on Routine Replication Dynamics: An Agent-Based Model," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2018, pages 1-23, November.
    9. Erik Lundmark & Alf Westelius, 2014. "Entrepreneurship as Elixir and Mutagen," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 38(3), pages 575-600, May.
    10. Robert Charles Sheldon & Eric Michael Laviolette & Fabien Geuser, 2020. "Explaining the process and effects of new routine introduction with a notion of micro-level entrepreneurship," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 609-642, July.
    11. Khan, Haider, 2008. "Causal Depth contra Humean Empiricism: Aspects of a Scientific Realist Approach to Explanation," MPRA Paper 8297, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2008.
    12. Stańczyk-Hugiet Ewa, 2014. "Routines in the process of organizational evolution," Management, Sciendo, vol. 18(2), pages 73-87, December.
    13. G. Buenstorf, 2005. "How Useful Is Universal Darwinism as a Framework to Study Competition and Industrial Evolution?," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2005-02, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    14. Burr, Wolfgang & Frohwein, Torsten, 2012. "Regelbrüche in Organisationen," Research Papers on Innovation, Services and Technology 1/2012, University of Stuttgart, Institute of Business Administration, Department I - Institute of Research & Development and Innovation Management.
    15. Geoffrey Hodgson & Thorbjørn Knudsen, 2006. "The nature and units of social selection," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 16(5), pages 477-489, December.
    16. Lukas Radwan & Sebastian Kinder, 2013. "Practising the Diffusion of Organizational Routines," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(10), pages 2442-2458, October.
    17. Valentine P. Vishnevsky & Aleksandr V. Gurnak, 2015. "Taxation, evolutionary economics and tax populations," Journal of Tax Reform, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Ural Federal University, vol. 1(1), pages 113-132.
    18. Khan, Haider, 2008. "Causal Depth: Aspects of a Scientific Realist Approach to Causal Explanation contra Humean Empiricism," MPRA Paper 8293, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2008.
    19. Agnès Festré & Nathalie Lazaric, 2007. "Routines and leadership in Schumpeter and von Mises' analysis of economic change," Post-Print halshs-00271338, HAL.
    20. Christian Cordes, 2014. "There are several ways to incorporate evolutionary concepts into economic thinking," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2014-02, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    21. Rouslan Koumakhov & Adel Daoud, 2017. "Routine and reflexivity: Simonian cognitivism vs practice approach," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 26(4), pages 727-743.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nathalie Lazaric, 2007. "Are Routines Reducible or Mere Cognitive Automatisms? Some contributions from cognitive science to help shed light on change in routines," DRUID Working Papers 07-13, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.
    2. Bénédicte Reynaud, 2005. "The void at the heart of rules: Routines in the context of rule-following," PSE Working Papers halshs-00590855, HAL.
    3. Geoffrey Hodgson & Thorbjørn Knudsen, 2006. "The nature and units of social selection," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 16(5), pages 477-489, December.
    4. Nathalie Lazaric & Blandine Denis, 2005. "Routinisation and memorisation of tasks inside a workshop: the case of the introduction of ISO norms," Post-Print hal-00457079, HAL.
    5. Nathalie Lazaric, 2012. "Evolution of Individual and Organizational Knowledge: Exploring Some Motivational Triggers Enabling Change," Chapters, in: Richard Arena & Agnès Festré & Nathalie Lazaric (ed.), Handbook of Knowledge and Economics, chapter 21, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Grajzl, Peter & Murrell, Peter, 2016. "A Darwinian theory of institutional evolution two centuries before Darwin?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PA), pages 346-372.
    7. Paul Peigné, 2013. "Routines during an organizational change: a study on dynamics and its effects," Post-Print hal-00876163, HAL.
    8. Giovanni Dosi & Luigi Marengo, 2007. "Perspective---On the Evolutionary and Behavioral Theories of Organizations: A Tentative Roadmap," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(3), pages 491-502, June.
    9. Geoffrey M. Hodgson, 2013. "Organizational adaptation and evolution: Darwinism versus Lamarckism?," Chapters, in: Anna Grandori (ed.), Handbook of Economic Organization, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Frank, Joshua, 2003. "Natural selection, rational economic behavior, and alternative outcomes of the evolutionary process," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 601-622, December.
    11. Agnès Festré & Nathalie Lazaric, 2007. "Routines and leadership in Schumpeter and von Mises' analysis of economic change," Post-Print halshs-00271338, HAL.
    12. Richard Arena & Agnès Festré & Nathalie Lazaric (ed.), 2012. "Handbook of Knowledge and Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3101.
    13. Kanazawa, Satoshi, 2005. "Is "discrimination" necessary to explain the sex gap in earnings?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 269-287, April.
    14. Lazaric, Nathalie, 2011. "Organizational routines and cognition: an introduction to empirical and analytical contributions," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(2), pages 147-156, June.
    15. Sandra Silva & Aurora Teixeira, 2009. "On the divergence of evolutionary research paths in the past 50 years: a comprehensive bibliometric account," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 19(5), pages 605-642, October.
    16. Mickaël David & Frantz Rowe, 2015. "Enterprise Systems Contribution to Organizational Routines Evolution Potential [Le rôle des systèmes d’information d’entreprise dans l’évolutivité des routines organisationnelles]," Post-Print hal-01559512, HAL.
    17. Ríos-Núñez, Sandra M. & Coq-Huelva, Daniel & García-Trujillo, Roberto, 2013. "The Spanish livestock model: A coevolutionary analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 342-350.
    18. Andrew W. Lo & H. Allen Orr & Ruixun Zhang, 2018. "The growth of relative wealth and the Kelly criterion," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 49-67, April.
    19. Thomas Grebel, 2011. "Innovation and Health," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14375.
    20. Elias Khalil, 2009. "Natural selection and rational decision: two concepts of optimization," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 417-435, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cai:recosp:reco_542_0355. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jean-Baptiste de Vathaire (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cairn.info/revue-economique.htm .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.