EVOLUTIONARY ECONOMICS AS AN ALTERNATIVE FOR EXPLAINING HUMAN ORGANIZATIONS
EVOLUTIONARY ECONOMICS AS AN ALTERNATIVE FOR EXPLAINING HUMAN ORGANIZATIONS

Summary/Abstract: The debate about “nature” versus “nurture” in explaining human behaviours and human organizations has gained importance in the last decades, as many authors have come to agree that the classical theory of ”hommo oeconomicus” - seeing the individual as a rational agent, guided by the goal of obtaining the best result with the most cost-effective means - cannot entirely and efficiently explain both human behavior and human organizations. An alternative to the classical explanation of humans as ”products of culture” might be the evolutionary theory, which state that the Darwinian mechanisms of variation, selection, and replication (or inheritance) apply to social entities and processes, given the fact that businesses, organizations or even states also compete for scarce resources, such as organisms do. In this equation, organizations adapt and change; some fail, others prosper; they learn and pass on information.

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