Evolutionary psychology: theoretical foundations for the study of organizations

This article provides an introduction to evolutionary psychology and its relevance toorganizational design theory and practice. Evolutionary psychology assumes thathuman nature reflect adaptations to an ancestral environment that was intenselysocial, but differed profoundly from modern organizations in scale and complexity.Further, organizational structures and cultures co-evolved with human nature to dealwith the different environmental challenges early humans faced. In this article, Ipresent a concise review of the theoretical foundations of evolutionary psychologyand convey how evolutionary psychology hypotheses about organizational design,culture, and leadership in organizations can be developed and tested. I also providesome directions for future research in this area and discuss implications for designingorganizations that are perhaps better aligned with human nature than currentstructures.