The Coevolution of Industries and Academic Disciplines

Abstract: Evolutionary theories have emerged as important explanations for industrial and organizational change. Using a comparative historical method and drawing on inductive evidence from five countries spanning a 60-year period, the study clarifies how national industries and academic disciplines coevolve as a result of mutualistic causal processes that work alongside well-known competitive processes. The analysis identifies three causal processes as being responsible for the coevolution of national industries and national academic disciplines: the exchange of personnel between industrial firms and academic organizations, the formation of commercial ties between the two social arenas, and lobbying by each on the other