ABSTRACT
Evolutionary economic theory has developed a somewhat more differentiated and contextualized concept of economic decisions and action. The concept "routine" plays a major role in evolutionary economic theory, where it is used to understand the innovation behavior of firms and industries. Evolutionary economic theory is strongly marked by the new concept of evolution that has supplanted the old one. Evolutionary economics asks above all how innovations come about, in devising in this connection a model marked by certain assumptions on the technological and economic restrictions involved for entrepreneurial decisions. The mainstream of ecological economics emphasizes the need to embed economic activities in natural cycles; but it has little to say on the problem of embedding them in social processes and structures. The critique of mainstream sociology is important in that it sets out the direction which Anthony Giddens' later theory of structuration is to take.
