Novelty in Organizational Adaptation

This session will feature scholars in management and organization theory and focus on issues of novelty in organizations on several dimensions and involving perspectives from different disciplinary areas. Discussions will present conceptual, theoretical and empirical research relevant to core management areas such as organization, strategy, entrepreneurship. In order to provide some background and context to this theme, we will include discussions on the concept of novelty in economics and management thought as well as on the fundamental properties of novelty in the context of organizational adaptation. We will also discuss themes such as: How and why do organizations search for novelty? How do organizations overcome the mechanisms of novelty destruction? How do organizations learn from novel events? Are there organizations (structure, capabilities) that help the organization to react to novel events and adapt more quickly? Organizer: Frigotto, Maria Laura; U. of Trento; laura.frigotto@economia.unitn.it Organizer: Augier, Mie; Stanford U.; augier@stanford.edu Speaker: March, James G.; Stanford U.; march@stanford.edu Speaker: Becker, Markus; U. of Southern Denmark/ Odense U.; mab@sam.sdu.dk Speaker: Narduzzo, Alessandro; Free U. Bozen-Bolzano; narduz@unibz.it Speaker: Rossi, Alessandro; U. of Trento; alessandro.rossi@unitn.it Discussant: Levinthal, Daniel; U. of Pennsylvania; levinthal@wharton.upenn.edu Speaker: Knudsen, Thorbjoern; SDU; tok@sam.sdu.dk Speaker: Winter, Sidney G.; U. of Pennsylvania; winter@wharton.upenn.edu