Darwinist connections between the systemness of social organizations and their evolution
- PDF / 353,531 Bytes
- 26 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 76 Downloads / 215 Views
Darwinist connections between the systemness of social organizations and their evolution Roberto Cafferata
Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract Is the systemness of social organizations related to their evolution? This research question has not yet received appropriate attention by the literature on management and organization theory. The author believes that addressing it can constitute a substantive opportunity to understand key intertwined associated processes, such as organizational survival, competitive success/advantage, or failure. In this article, the author attempts to contribute to fill the aforesaid gap adopting a critical Darwinist approach. Keywords
Darwinism Evolution Adaptation Firm’s life cycle Systemness
1 Introduction Natural sciences conceptualize evolution as every kind of morphological, physiological and/or behavioral change affecting living organisms over generations, thus over a time horizon which is not short (Mayr 2001; Pievani 2010; Williams 1966). Not surprisingly, Charles Darwin wrote that evolution is measured along ‘‘a long lapse of time’’ (1859, reprint 2008: 170, 177). Further on, we shall see in detail that, according to Darwin, evolution occurs because of ‘‘natural selection’’ and the polarization of ‘‘innumerable’’ and favourable ‘‘slight variations’’ (2008: 169–170, 448) in some species or members of these species, which will be transmitted to the offspring. That is the same as saying that not all species are able to accumulate variations of vital importance;
R. Cafferata (&) Department of Studies on Business, Government, Philosophy, Faculty of Economics, Rome ‘‘Tor Vergata’’ University, Via Columbia, 2, 00133 Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected]
123
R. Cafferata
therefore, some organic typologies survive while others are selected out of the environment in which they live.1 Philosophy and theology cultivate a number of contrasting ideas about the creation and change of living organisms (Hayek 1979; Horn and Wiedenhofer 2007; Lamoureux 2012; Nelson 1995; Pascual 2004; Polanyi 1944; Ruse 2009). The unsolved juxtaposition of creationism and evolutionism is evidence of the sensibility collected by the topics we shall discuss in this article (Bagnasco 2009: 7). Indeed, at least from Pius XII’s Humani Generis to John Paul II’s message of evolution as ‘‘creatio continua’’,2 the catholic theology has not radically contrasted the evolutionary doctrine, which has been developing mostly on the basis of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871).3 It is particularly significant that, during its November 2008 plenary assembly, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences reiterated that evolution represents an established datum of knowledge, a consolidated result of scientific research. Still, what remains unaddressed is the important question raised, with great clarity and simplicity, by the Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 284) about the ‘‘supernatural versus earthly’’ meaning of the original creatio, i.e. about the origin o
Data Loading...
