Geography Reference
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the ability of actors to create new variations and to retain adaptive variations.
2
As long
as the organizational forms of clusters enable variation and retention and are subject to
selection forces, evolution can take place.
Evolutionary theorists are well aware that the processes and mechanisms by which
evolution unfolds in the social domain can dif er signii cantly across and within types of
social system, as opposed to the more 'single-mindedness' of genetic evolution. These dif-
ferences, however, do not undermine the view that ongoing change is Darwinian in that
the general evolutionary processes of variation, selection, and retention occur in all units
and at all levels of social systems (Dennett, 1995; Hodgson and Knudsen, 2006). These
generic processes subsume additional social processes, such as learning and institution-
alization, which may play out dif erently in dif erent contexts, depending on the details of
the mechanisms involved (Staber, 2009). The challenge is to discover exactly how these
processes operate in the socio-economic setting of a given cluster.
Evolutionary theory is not a monolithic bloc but incorporates a variety of more or less
distinct approaches that cluster researchers have found useful for exploring issues related
to variety, path dependence, uneven development, life-cycle, competitiveness, entrepre-
neurship, and so forth. Scholars have borrowed evolutionary concepts from organization
science, particularly population and community ecology, and from institutional theory
and complexity theory. The ecological perspective proposes that change be studied at
the level of organizational populations, dei ned as collectivities whose members draw
on the same or similar resources (Hannan et al., 2007). To this end, they have employed
Darwinian evolutionary models to explain the evolution of populations in terms of vital
rates, such as rates of organizational foundings and disbandings. The extension of this
work to broader communities of interacting populations is useful for cluster research in
that it allows the incorporation of organizations located outside the focal cluster as a
potential source of new variation. The study of populations occupying distinct locations
in geographical space makes it possible to examine questions related to the constitution
and construction of cluster boundaries, such as the role of competition and mutualism in
reproducing boundaries. It thus speaks to the central concern in cluster research about
the geographic reach of resource linkages.
At the organizational level, evolutionary analysis proceeds on the premise that organi-
zations are not unitary entities but more or less well coordinated bundles of routines and
competencies. Routines may either substitute or complement each other. In cases where
routines 'compete', they may drain vital resources from the organization, as when i rms
that invest too much in exploiting existing resources do not have sui cient capacity left
to explore new opportunities (March, 1991). The concern for competition and mutual-
ism draws attention to the ambivalent ef ects of heterogeneity within i rms and clusters.
By increasing cognitive distance between cluster i rms, internal cluster heterogeneity may
limit social integration and knowledge sharing; but this may also be a source of varia-
tion, stimulating innovation.
Institutional theory is often employed to explain how organizations seek strategies
and structures that i t the social context in which resource selection decisions are made
(Scott, 2001). Institutionalization of structures and behaviors is seen as both an outcome
(drawing attention to stability and retention) and an activity (drawing attention to
change and variation). The institutional approach has been found useful by economic
geographers interested in questions of coordination, domination, and legitimation. A
