Call For Papers Special Issue Journal of Management Studies
Beyond Adaptation vs. Selection Research: Organizing Self-Renewal in
Coevolving Environments.
Guest Editors:
Arie Y. Lewin, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University
Henk W. Volberda Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University
According to conventional wisdom the industrial Era is transitioning to the
Internet Age. Managers worldwide, in almost every sector of the economy, are
experiencing the volatility and discontinuity associated with the
deconstruction of their industries and the emergence of new ones. Moreover,
managers have been and continue to engage in massive strategic
re-orientations and major organization restructuring and repositioning
efforts as they try to cope with effects of the transition. The macro forces
of change driving and contributing to this transition are now familiar. They
include, for example, the globalisation of markets, falling trade barriers
coupled with increased interdependence of economies, massive population
movements, deflation and the Internet revolution. These changes have
produced an environment for today�s managers that in the current lexicon may
be correctly portrayed as chaotic.
The central concern of this JMS special issue are the dynamics of
organization adaptation and mutation in times of bewildering rapid rates of
environmental change and accompanying accelerating selection rates. The
adaptation selection literature is very extensive and spans diverse
theoretical perspectives. But, it is inconclusive on the role of managerial
intentionality in organizational adaptation. While some theoretical
approaches focus on the role of managerial intentionality other theoretical
lenses highlight their limitations. Indeed the voluminous literature on
adaptation vs. selection has more to say about selection and sources and
causes of structural inertia than about self-renewing organizational forms
that might counteract such inertia. Moreover, the dominant discourse on
adaptation-selection still takes place within single theme theoretical
silos.
We believe that single theme explanations of the adaptation � selection
phenomenon have reached their limit. The time is right to abandon na�ve
selection or na�ve adaptation research in favour of considering joint
outcomes of intentional adaptation and environmental selection pressures.
With a few exceptions researchers have tended not to address the
interrelationship between firm-level adaptation and population level
selection. Coevolutionary models incorporate the premise that adaptation
and selection are not orthogonal forces but are fundamentally interrelated.
In other words, change is not an outcome of managerial adaptation or
environmental selection but rather the joint outcome of intentionality and
environmental effects.
Our purpose in editing this JMS special issue is to attract and publish
papers that share the theme of self-renewing organizational forms but
recognize that organizations are embedded within and coevolve with their
environments. In addition we expect that these papers will lead
the way in crossing the chasm of the single theme silos by formulating
theoretical frameworks and empirical investigations which combine and build
on the complementary aspects of these theories.
The Deadline for submitting papers is August 31, 2001. Three copies of the
paper should be submitted to the editorial offices of JMS following the
journal guidelines to authors. One copy should be forwarded to each of the
guest editors. Based on the first round of reviews, authors will be invited
to present their papers at one of two conferences to be held at the Fuqua
School of Business, Duke University and the Rotterdam School of Management,
Erasmus University. Tentatively these �back to back� conferences are planned
for January 2002. On the basis of the reviewers� comments, presentations and
discussion of the papers at the conferences, the editors will extend
conditional acceptances for papers to be included in the JMS special issue.
Addresses:
Send papers and address all correspondence to
Joan Camm, 11 Greenbanks Drive, Horsforth, Leeds LS18 5BH,
UK
Arie Y. Lewin, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University,
Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA
aylewin@attglobal.net Henk W. Volberda, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus
University, Burg. Oudlan 50, P.O.Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The
Netherlands.
H.Volberda@fac.fbk.eur.nl