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An Introduction to the Evolutionary Perspective
The Evolutionary Approach: A 'Classic' Study
Implications for Entrepreneurs
Questions for Discussion
References
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Business and Management
Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations

Evolution and Entrepreneurship

Profile image of Dermot BreslinDermot Breslin

2011, Perspectives in Entrepreneurship: A Course Text, Palgrave

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-35809-6_8
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Abstract

‘From so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved’ (Darwin, 1859, p. 490). In the closing lines of Darwin’s Origin of the Species he wonders at the force of evolution in biology, while at the same time putting forward the tantalising possibility that evolutionary forces might be at work in other domains of study. Since the publication of Darwin’s Origin of the Species (Darwin 1859), researchers in domains of study at times far removed from biology have expanded the key principles of Darwinian change to disciplines such as language, psychology, economics, behaviour and culture (Aldrich, 1999; Dennett, 1995; Durham, 1991; Nelson and Winter, 1982; Plotkin, 1994; Richerson and Boyd, 2005; Tooby and Cosmides, 1992). While there are differences in approach amongst these diverse strands of research, a perspective has emerged which has been labelled the Universal or Generalized Darwinist approach (Dawkins, 1983; Hodgson and Knudsen, 2010; Stoelhurst, 2008). Generalized Darwinists argue that at a sufficiently general level of abstraction a core set of general Darwinian principles of variation, selection and retention can be used to describe evolution within a variety of domains (Campbell, 1965; Hodgson and Knudsen, 2004), including biology, psychology, culture and economics. In this way the words of Darwin quoted above might even describe the evolution of different forms of organizations and industries from the simple beginnings of an entrepreneurial start-up in a Schumpeterian style industry birth.

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