| The project entails the organization of a seminar in whichscientists from different fields within the social and behavioralsciences are brought together to discuss the evolutionary principlesof social and economic institutions. We will specifically aim atbringing together economists, who have long been interested in howselection between organizations leads to organization-environment fit, with psychologists, who have recently developed an active stream ofresearch on selection within organizations that concentrates onperson-organization fit. Combining these two perspectives shouldcontribute to a better understanding of the multi-level nature of theevolution of socio-economic institutions. The seminar will discuss ifUniversal Darwinism (the notion that thevariation-selection-retention algorithm that is central to Darwin?stheory of biological evolution can explain the evolution of all open,complex system) can help ground theories of socio-economicinstitutions more fully in evolutionary principles. In doing so, wewill specifically focus on how the selection mechanisms withinorganizations that have been studied by psychologists relate to theselection between organizations that is the traditional focus ofeconomists. Psychologists have documented how mutual adaptationbetween person and organization leads to homogeneity withinorganizations, but it is as yet an open question how such homogeneityaffects both individual and organizational performance. One possibleway to consider the link between selection within organizations toselection between organizations is to view the two as different typesof selection that each need their place in a fully developed theoryof the evolution of human organization. Social scientists have so fartypically drawn on the analogy between what Darwin called ?strugglefor existence? and ?competition in markets? as explanations for howsocio-economic institutions evolve. But Darwin?s theory rests on twopillars: the mechanism of ?survival selection? that has inspiredevolutionary theory in the social sciences is complemented by ?sexualselection?. The seminar will explore if the nature of sexualselection mechanisms could provide the ontological basis to link |
