Toward a Phylogenetic Reconstruction of Organizational Life

This article presents a case for the construction of a formal classification of manufacturing systems using cladistics, a technique from the biological school of classification. A seven-stage framework for producing a manufacturing cladogram is presented, along with a pilot case study example. This article describes the role that classification plays in the pure and applied sciences, and the social sciences and reviews the status of existing manufacturing classifications. If organisational diversity and organisational change processes are governed by evolutionary mechanisms, studies of organisations based on an evolutionary approach such as cladistics could have potential, because as March states “there is natural speculation that organisations, like species can be engineered by understanding the evolutionary processes well enough to intervene and produce competitive organisational effects” [March JG. The evolution of evolution. In: Baum JAC, Singh JV, editors. Evolutionary dynamics of organizations. Oxford University Press, 1994. p. 39-52]. It is suggested that a cladistic study could provide organisations with a “knowledge map” of the ecosystem in which they exist and by using this phylogenetic and situational analysis, they could determine coherent and appropriate action for the specification of change.

Omega, 2000

This article presents a case for the construction of a formal classi®cation of manufacturing systems using cladistics, a technique from the biological school of classi®cation. A seven-stage framework for producing a manufacturing cladogram is presented, along with a pilot case study example. This article describes the role that classi®cation plays in the pure and applied sciences, the social sciences and reviews the status of existing manufacturing classi®cations. If organisational diversity and organisational change processes are governed by evolutionary mechanisms, studies of organisations based on an evolutionary approach such as cladistics could have potential, because as March [March JG. The evolution of evolution. In: Baum JAC, Singh JV, editors. Evolutionary dynamics of organizations. Oxford University Press, 1994. p. 39±52], page 45, states``there is natural speculation that organisations, like species can be engineered by understanding the evolutionary processes well enough to intervene and produce competitive organisational eects''. It is suggested that a cladistic study could provide organisations with a``knowledge map'' of the ecosystem in which they exist and by using this phylogenetic and situational analysis, they could determine coherent and appropriate action for the speci®cation of change. # Omega 28 0305-0483/00/$ -see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 3 0 5 -0 4 8 3 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 3 0 -4

2012

* Professor, University of Siena and Central European University. An early draft of this Article was given at the Berle III Symposium held at Seattle University School of Law in January 2012. I thank the participants in that conference, and in particular Charles O'Kelley and Faith Stevelman, for their useful comments. I am also very grateful to the editors at the Seattle University Law Review for their very useful comments and their excellent editing of my Article.

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2005

This essay introduces the basic methodology of organizational ecology and sketches some key insights arising from that work. For example, the paper will consider the extent of diversity of organizational forms; whether organizations can easily shift their defining characteristics; what happens to organizations as they age; the extent to which organizations can find niches that protect them against competitive pressures; and questions of how best to define the identity of organizations.

2014

This paper explores the institutionalisation of key evolutionary terms in scientific discourse and how these impact the language concerned with the evolution of organizations. Evolutionary models in management and organization theory display a bewildering array of applications and interpretations so that the meaning of key terms such as “selection” and “co-evolution” is inconsistent, frequently confused and lost in translation. Through a comprehensive bibliometric and narrative analysis of an expanding literature we determine that “evolution” is a vague word. Often treating evolutionary terms as precise and meaningful, and “evolution” as a term upon which we are all agreed, we find broad and ambiguous terms often substitute in this literature for clear definition and precise explanation. In the interests of progress towards a more unifying evolutionary interpretive framework, we call for greater clarity and precision in the use of evolutionary language.

Journal of Organization Design

Levinthal’s (Evolutionary processes and organizational adaptation: a Mendelian perspective on strategic management. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2021) book is not only a helpful resource on the many facets of organizational adaptation, but also a source of inspiration that promises to revitalize research on organizational evolution. Taking inspiration from this book, I outline a perspective on three topics that may enrich management research: (1) Levinthal’s treatment of path-dependence is a much-needed candidate for a general account of selection processes across biological and social domains; (2) Levinthal’s idea that corporate diversification and technological disruption may be considered instances of speciation—i.e., branching of lineages—(re)frames an exciting research agenda at the intersection of ecology and evolution; (3) Considering executives as a population of fruit flies may, from the perspective of empirical research, be a useful complement to the idea of the Mendel...

2020

Organizations devoted to the production of goods and services, such as guilds, partnerships and modern corporations, have dominated the economic landscape in our species’ history. We develop an exp...

Journal of Evolutionary Studies in Business-JESB, 2016

The Journal of Evolutionary Studies in Business is a new open access journal led by an international interdisciplinary team of scholars located in eight institutions from three continents who wants to attract contributions that help shed light on the new questions, challenges, methodologies and realities, faced by businesses in an evolutionary perspective. The journal calls particularly for review essays that deal with new research topics about business, and provide useful overviews of the key ideas, scholars, and debates about important research topics concerning business and its environment.

Organization Studies, 2013

The terms ‘evolution’ and ‘coevolution’ are widely used in organization studies but rarely defined. Often it is unclear whether they refer to single entities or populations. When specific evolutionary processes are suggested, the labelling is often misleading. For example, in the debate over the roles of individual adaptation and competitive selection, the ‘selectionist’ position of Michael Hannan and John Freeman, which emphasizes the role of selection and stress the limits of individual firm adaptability, is often described as ‘Darwinian’ whereas opposing views that emphasize adaptability are described as ‘Lamarckian’. But these labels are not strictly dichotomous. Scholars have shown that core Darwinian principles, resulting from abstract ontological communality rather than analogy, apply to social evolution. This opens up a research agenda using the principles of generalized Darwinism and the replicator–interactor framework to help understand the evolution of organizations. Some...