Time to Question Dominant Logic

In a recent article FT columnist John Kay reviews a book by an ecologist which explores the secrets of human success and, in the process, undermines dominant economic theory and widely accepted wisdom.

"The ability to engage in large-scale cooperative activity is what makes humans as a species unique. It is the secret of our success as a species. It is certainly the secret of the productivity of modern developed economies", is Kay's conclusion. He adds, "This capability is a challenge to economists whose focus is on the rational optimising individual".

the book, by Joe Henrich, describes the interacting roles of natural selection, group selection, and cultural selection. And how these mechanisms of evolution map into his trilogy of individual learning, social learning, and cultural learning, which interact in a process of coevolution.

The author concludes, "‘To move forward in our quest to better understand human life, we need to embrace a new kind of evolutionary science, one that focuses on the rich interaction and co-evolution of psychology, culture, biology, history, and genes" and add, this "scientific road is largely untravelled"

It also poses great questions for the dominant ideas in management theory and practice, led by Michael Porters obsession with competition, largely based on the thinking that has dominated economics. And hardly surprising given Porter was first an economist.