An Evolutionary Perspective of Radical Innovation and its implications for Management and Organizations

The thesis develops an evolutionary perspective of technological change based on a complex analogy between biological and technological evolution. The theoretical framework is based on a rich tradition of interdisciplinary research, integrating Herbert Simon’s seminal theory on modular complex systems, artifact-centered evolutionary models of innovation (e.g. Basalla’s), and fundamental evolutionary processes recently researched in microbiology – including in particular exaptation and horizontal transfer. The novel evolutionary perspective is supported by analytical narratives of paradigmatic historical and prehistorical cases – including the bow-and-arrow and the turbojet revolution – emphasizing its explanatory power in understanding presumptive anomalies and the inception of radical innovation. Finally, some implications for innovation management (managing creative radical engineering), organizations (rethinking the mirror hypothesis) are explored as promising implications of this novel perspective of technological change.