Early works emphasized a notion that managers possessed the ability to determine the optimal means by which organizations could be structured.
Cyert and March (1963), in their influential work, A Behavioral Theory of the Firm, emphasized the adaptation of decision rules that facilitated the ways that organizations learned to cope with uncertain environments.
Sociological perspectives emerged as a result, emphasizing the role and strength of the environment in restraining the ability for managers to influence the success of organizations.
Particularly prominent in this regard was the work of organizational ecologists that leveraged ideas from evolutionary biology to explain the natural selection of organizations.
[2][6][7] Hrebeniak and Joyce (1985) specifically elaborated upon the interplay between strategic choice and environmental determinism, suggesting that both resided along a continuum that distinguished various forms of adaptation.
[9] Given such broad historical roots and biological connotations, organizational adaptation is often studied alongside related concepts to expose its presence.
[14] Drawing from perspectives that restrict the abilities of managers to fully influence or align to their environments, constraints (or conditions) on adaptation are also broadly studied.
The perspectives drawn upon to make the case for environments are evolutionary in nature and focus on variation, selection, and retention models that were popularized by Campbell (1965).