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Industrial and Corporate Change, Volume 13, Number 2, pp. 309-333
Industrial and Corporate Change 13/2 © ICC Association 2004; all rights reserved.

In search of the élite: revising a model of adaptive emulation with evidence from benchmarking team

David Strang and Mary C. Still

Correspondence: Department of Sociology, Cornell University, Ithaca NY 14850, USA. Email: ds20{at}cornell.edu and mcs19{at}cornell.edu

Abstract

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.


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