This study develops an evolutionary theory of the capabilities and behavior of business firms operating in a market environment. It includes both general discussion and the manipulation of specific simulation models consistent with that theory. The analysis outlines the differences between an...

In this paper, we describe the results of an inquiry into the nature of appropriability conditions in over one hundred manufacturing industries, and we discuss how this information has been and might be used to cast light on important issues in the economics of innovation and public policy. Our...

The set of technological opportunities in a given industry is one of the fundamental determinants of technical advance in that line of business. We examine the concept of technological opportunity and discuss three categories of sources of those opportunities: advances in scientific...

Organizational routines are considered basic components of organizational behavior and repositories of organizational capabilities (Nelson & Winter, 1982). They do, therefore, hold one of the keys to understanding organizational change. The article focuses on how the concept of organizational...

This paper argues that economists have been schizophrenic regarding the theory of the firm in a competitive industry. In much (but not all) of their formal mathematical modeling, maximization and equilibrium are taken literally. Ordinarily, however, both maximization and equilibrium are...

Stochastic theories of the firm size distribution explain observed size differences among firms as the consequence of random growth rate differences, accumulated over time. Little attention has thus far been paid, however, to economic interpretation of the abstract stochastic processes involved....