In search of the elite: revising a model of adaptive emulation with evidence from benchmarking team
通过分析参与标杆团队的经理人自述，修正了Strang和Macy的适应性模仿模型，发现企业不仅模仿高绩效者，还关注声望高的精英企业，且这种社会导向的模仿虽有利于集体适应，但会扩大流行性创新的范围。
We revise Strang and Macy's model of adaptive emulation through inspection of empirical efforts at innovation. Self-reports of managers participating in benchmarking teams are consistent with the argument that innovation is problem-driven, focused on performance and draws heavily on success stories. But managerial accounts also indicate close attention to prestigious firms, an orientation that broadens prior arguments about imitation of top performers. We develop a version of adaptive emulation where firms imitate members of a corporate élite whose prestige is related to but not reducible to performance. Computational modeling indicates that socially oriented emulation is collectively adaptive but that it also widens the range of innovations that experience faddish careers.