ECONOMICS: Nothing Succeeds Like Failure -- Kean 312 (5773): 531 -- Science

ECONOMICS: Nothing Succeeds Like Failure -- Kean 312 (5773): 531 -- Science: "There are two conclusions, neither of them satisfying, one can draw from Paul Ormerod's thesis that the extinction patterns of biological species and business firms not only look similar, but are under-girded by the same 'law of failure.' On the one hand, Ormerod points out in Why Most Things Fail, perhaps both corporations and species plan their evolution. But this amounts to saying that ringworms can tinker with their DNA as easily as managers adjust their capital projections and budgets. The other, and much more likely, conclusion is that corporate evolution is as random as biological evolution. Things aren't quite so hopeless, Ormerod writes, but 'firms are no more capable of planning and securing favourable outcomes with their changes of strategy than sunflowers are capable of deciding to grow feet better to follow the sun.'"