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Author Spotlight: Advancing Protein Engineering – Harnessing Evolution Through PRANCE and Lab Automation

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The evolution of productive organizations.

Francisco Brahm¹, Joaquin Poblete^2,3

¹London Business School, London, UK. fbrahm@london.edu.

Nature Human Behaviour

|September 22, 2020

Summary

Organizations evolved due to exclusive membership and effective social learning, fostering innovation and cultural accumulation. This cultural evolution explains the development of guilds, partnerships, and corporations throughout history.

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Area of Science:

Evolutionary Anthropology
Economic History
Sociology

Background:

Organizations for goods and services (guilds, corporations) have historically dominated economies.
Cultural evolution theory posits that social learning drives innovation and cultural accumulation.

Purpose of the Study:

To explain the evolution of organizations using cultural evolution theory.
To model how organizational characteristics facilitate social learning and innovation.

Main Methods:

Developed a theoretical model based on cultural evolution principles.
Incorporated organizational characteristics: membership exclusivity and internal social learning effectiveness.
Tested predictions using data from premodern societies in the Ethnographic Atlas.

Main Results:

The model explains the cooperative social learning advantage within organizations.
Organizational specialization, rigidity, and innovation locus are explained by the model.
Empirical evidence from premodern societies supports the model's predictions.

Conclusions:

Organizational exclusivity and effective internal social learning are key drivers of their evolution.
This framework provides insights into the historical development and function of economic organizations.
Understanding these dynamics informs ongoing societal role debates.