Gene Flow
Gene flow manifests organizationally as the movement of people, ideas, and practices across company boundaries.
Your organization cannot maintain distinctive capabilities if migration rate exceeds selection strength. Differentiation dies in openness - not because openness is inherently bad, but because the mathematics of gene flow don't care about your intentions.
Gene flow is the movement of genetic variants between populations through migration and interbreeding. When individuals migrate from one population to another and successfully reproduce, their alleles enter the local gene pool. Over time, migration homogenizes allele frequencies between connected populations, even in the absence of selection. The mathematical relationship is captured in the island model: the change in allele frequency per generation equals the migration rate times the difference between source and destination frequencies (Δp = m(pM - pI)). The critical threshold is Nm ≈ 1: one successful migrant per generation is sufficient to counteract genetic drift in moderate-sized populations. When Nm >> 1, populations become effectively panmictic (freely interbreeding as a single population), erasing genetic differentiation.
Business Application of Gene Flow
Gene flow manifests organizationally as the movement of people, ideas, and practices across company boundaries. Hiring imports external expertise and norms. Acquisitions inject entire teams and cultures. The math applies directly: when migration rate exceeds selection strength, organizations homogenize toward industry norms, losing distinctive capabilities.