Corporate Co-Evolution: A Political Perspective

WINNER OF THE GEORGE R. TERRY ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT BOOK AWARD 2009

"This superb study of a Brazilian state company's transition to private ownership is marvellously comprehensive in its coverage of the firm's entire life span and the full spectrum of its interactions with all aspects of its environment. The outstanding quality of this volume's contribution to co-evolutionary thinking and institutional and political theory has invaluable implications for culture, politics, identity, learning, and adaptation, making it an absolute 'must read' for all organization, management and strategy scholars."
—Christine Oliver, Professor and Henry J. Knowles Chair in Organizational Strategy, Schulich School of Business, York University

"This book by Suzanna B. Rodrigues and John Child is destined to become a classic study for several reasons. It is an exemplary study of co-evolutionary case study research, it is one of a very few longitudinal studies that focus on the interdependencies between firm evolution and the macro political and institutional environment and it provides a comprehensive and integrated state of the art framiing of current co-evolutionary theories and empirical research, It is a must read for scholars in Organization Science."
—Arei Y. Lewin, Duke University, Fuqua School of Business, Durham NC

"Corporate Co-evolution is a valuable contribution to the small but precious collection of studies of long-term change in business organizations. Tracking the evolution of a telecommunications company in Brazil over a 27 year period, Rodrigues and Child perform a delicate balancing act, according equal attention to the constraining/empowering effects of a changing institutional environment and to the strategic decisions and actions of the company's leaders."
—W. Richard Scott, Stanford University


Corporate Co-Evolution is a work of major scholarship that develops broad macro-economic principles of corporate strategy by examining and analyzing the history and growth of Telemig, a major Brazilian telecommunications company.

• Analyzes the different domains of the corporate environment - economic, social, cultural and political - that impact on the evolution of companies
• Traces the multi-level changes in a major Brazilian telecommunications company, uncovering the dynamics of change over the course of 30 years
• Develops a broader contextual and historical perspective that enriches our understanding of today’s international corporate environment
• Includes a general introduction to the complex political factors in the corporate environment that impact the growth of companies
• Co-authored by internationally-renowned author and business consultant, John Child