Organizing diversity: Evolutionary theory, network analysis and postsocialism

In contrast to the dominant transition framework that examines organizational forms in Eastern Europe according to the degree to which they conform to, or depart from the blueprints of already existing capitalisms, this paper examines the innovative character, born of necessity, in which actors in the postsocialist setting are restructuring by redefining and recombining resources. Instead of conceiving these recombinations as accidental aberrations, it explores their evolutionary potentials. Its starting premise is that the actual unit of entrepreneurship is not the isolated individual personality but the social networks that link firms and the actors within them. Drawing on recent developments in evolutionary theory, it cautions that although all-encompassing privatization and marketization might foster adaptation in the short run, the consequent loss of organizational diversity will impede adaptability in the long run.