Evolutionary stable strategies for business innovation and knowledge transfer

Abstract

Evolutionary game theory expands into a number of areas that go beyond the biological concept of evolution to include sociology, economics, and business management. Social networks determine definite interactions between individuals in social settings. The common nature of these two broad areas of research generates interest in applying the approaches of evolutionary game theory to social network-based problems. Knowledge transfer that occurs in the process of social interaction improves a company's innovation capability. This paper attempts to explore ways in which networks relate to knowledge transfer on the basis of evolutionary game theory. We offer a simple mathematical model to examine the interaction of knowledge transfer and actor behavior in games of coordination.