ABSTRACT
In the literature originating from the Carnegie-school tradition (e.g., Cyert and March 1963), company behaviour has been defi ned as ‘innovative if it differs signifi cantly from current or recent activities’ (Greve and Taylor 2000, 55). An evolutionary perspective on company behaviour assumes that the usual way fi rms evolve is via incremental changes in the routines and procedures which eventually cause systemic changes over relatively lengthy periods of time (Nelson and Winter 1982). Recently, both evolutionary (Augier and Teece 2006) and behavioural (Becker, Knudsen and March 2006) researchers have suggested that the entrepreneurial acts of individual actors may also be a source of novelty. Indeed, as Winter suggests, a historical account of a fi rm means that ‘the existence of a multiplicity of unobservable factors that shape fi rm behaviour would be explicitly recognized’ ([1968] 2006, 140).
