Revisiting the role of selection for the evolution of industries
本文区分了正式选择和社会选择两种类型，指出企业在多个选择环境中竞争，不仅限于产品市场，这对产业动态有深远影响，基于瑞典医疗技术产业的观察。
Despite a growing reliance on evolutionary theories when explaining industrial dynamics, the mechanism of selection has received limited attention. Selection is often taken for granted and conceptualised as product market competition. We go beyond this view and distinguish between different types of selection—formal and social—and consider how these lead to different entities being selected. Formal selection relies on codified selection criteria and often applies in selection environments where processes are standardised and institutions formalised. Social selection relies on reputation, referrals and previous interactions in order to evaluate intangible properties of the entities being selected. We argue that firms compete in multiple selection environments, not limited to product markets, that different selection environments may rely on different types of selection and that this has profound implications for industrial dynamics. This theoretical discussion is inspired by empirical observations of the medical technology industry in Sweden.