The Emergence of Organizations and Markets:

Theory Overview

John F. Padgettconference on book at

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced StudiesJune 30, 2015

Goals of bookTo rethink from social science perspective:

• Noveltyespecially organizational novelty(a.k.a. “emergence of actors”)

• Evolutionnot of genes or pseudo genes (“memes”)but of networks

P.S. Evo-devo is parallel move in biology tomake evolution more “networky”

Two core theoretical concepts

• Autocatalysis(from Walter Fontana at Santa Fe Institute)

• Multiple Networks(from Harrison White at Harvard Sociology)

My own objectives for workshop

• How to develop further the organizational novelty/network evolution research agenda?

-- potential follow-up venue: new SSRC working group on History and Evolution

• How to fill in remaining theoretical gaps between autocatalysis and multiple networks?

• More empirical applications?

Autocatalysis

• Constructivist networks of transformation/action-- not the usual “networks as pipes” of

mere transmission

• That reproduce themselves through time,via cycles in topology-- metaphors of body and nose

Autocatalysis (cont.)• Eigen and Schuster originally applied autocatalysis

to chemical origins of life,• but we add that their chemical definition of

“Life” also applies to• Economy

where products are produced and transformed• Social networks

where people are produced and transformed• Language

where symbols are produced and transformed

Three types of Autocatalysis

• Production autocatalysis-- products produced; skills reproduced-- appears in book mostly as models

• Biographical autocatalysis-- skills produced; relational protocols reprod.-- appears in book mostly as cases

• Linguistic autocatalysis-- conversations produced; symbols reprod.-- appears in book mostly as promissory note

Multiple Networks• Autocatalysis is self-organization/emergence:

in effect, network version of “selection”-- in biologists’ sense of relative reproduction-- not economists’ sense of relative efficiency

• That alone not evolution, because no generation of variation/novelty

• Our theory (really our cases) argue that org.novelty comes from transpositions andrecombinations of multiple social networks

Note: (a) Solid lines are constitutive ties. Dotted lines are relational social exchanges. Oblongs are formal organizations (families and firms.)(b) People in multiple roles are vertical tines connecting corresponding dots in the domains of activity in which people are active. (Only two are shown for illustra tion.)

Multiple Networks (cont.)

• Nice finding in chapter 3 modeling was endogenousemergence of multiple networks-- Durkheim’s “differentiation of domains”-- first model (I know) to do so

• Each domain is autocatalytic, but multiple domains function to regulate and to catalyze each other,

through shared parts/people -- “regulate” means negative feedback betweendomains, to smooth perturbations-- “tipping” or “spillover” means positive feedback

between domains, to induce new autocatalytic cycles

Innovation versus Invention• Innovation is vertical movement in figure 1

-- through multi-functional nodes and short chains-- social embeddedness “topology of possible”-- innovation per se quite common, but mostly eliminated by autocatalytic reproduction

• Invention is horizontal spillover in figure 1-- not like new product but like new industry

• “Revolution” is cascade into more than one domain-- like formation of new multi-functional elite

• [Woody will say more]

Outstanding issues/Next steps

• No time for me to discuss, but I sent around:

(1) Resilience/structural vulnerability(2) Syncretism(3) Modularity(4) Micro mechanisms of network

recombination(5) Biography