In search of the Èlite: revising a model of adaptive emulation with evidence from benchmarking team

David Strang and Mary C. Still

Industrial and Corporate Change, 2004, vol. 13, issue 2, 309-333

Abstract: We revise Strang and Macy's model of adaptive emulation through inspection of empirical efforts at innovation. Self-reports of managers participating in benchmarking teams are consistent with the argument that innovation is problem-driven, focused on performance and draws heavily on success stories. But managerial accounts also indicate close attention to prestigious firms, an orientation that broadens prior arguments about imitation of top performers. We develop a version of adaptive emulation where firms imitate members of a corporate Èlite whose prestige is related to but not reducible to performance. Computational modeling indicates that socially oriented emulation is collectively adaptive but that it also widens the range of innovations that experience faddish careers. Copyright 2004, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2004
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