ABSTRACT
Organizational policies correspond to biological genes; policy innovation corresponds to genetic mutation; and learning corresponds to genetic recombination. These correspondences form a foundation for creating mechanisms that will foster more rapid organizational evolution in the direction managers desire. Computer simulation offers a laboratory environment for exploring issues in organizational evolution including learning drift, hierarchy, and team learning. The organizational analog of recombining chromosomes or culinary dishes is the recombination of policies. Computer simulations make it possible to study evolutionary learning under "laboratory conditions" where the pace can be quickened, policies can be explicitly specified, and learning can be closely monitored. The chapter explains a foundation that utilizes advances in evolutionary algorithms to understand what is possible in organizational evolution. Evolutionary management replaces the impossible task of understanding complex organizations with the merely difficult task of understanding organizational evolution.
