Searching, Shaping, and the Quest for Superior Performance

This paper benefited from comments received at the Stanford Conference on Evolutionary Perspectives on Strategy, the MOC-TIM Conference at ETH Zurich, the TOM conference at MIT, during faculty seminars at Bocconi University, Boston University, Columbia University, Duke University, INSEAD, and the University of Chicago, and from the editors, Dan Levinthal and Bill Barnett. A special thank you goes to Joe Porac for introducing the authors to the literature on niche construction.