This essay explores evolutionary and competence-based theories of the firm. Evolutionary theories can be regarded as a subset of a wider class of theories, variously described as “capabilities”, “resource-based”, or “competence-based” theories of the firm. These contrast with a...

In a recent paper, Matthias Kelm (1997) accepts that `Schumpeter's definition of evolution does not contain any Darwinian mechanism such as natural selection or any other biological concept' and that Schumpeter `made no such attempt' to apply `Darwinian theory to economic evolution'. However,...

Advocacy of 'methodological individualism' is widespread, especially among economists. However, the term is rarely defined with adequate precision and some crucial ambiguities are explored in this article. Among these is the commonplace ambivalence over whether explanations should be in terms of...