Companies are not only systems created and controlled by those who manage them but also self-organizing entities that evolve through learning. Whereas an organism is a creation of natural replicators, genes, an organization can be seen as a product of an alternative replicator, the meme or mental model, acting, like a gene, to preserve itself in an Evolutionary Stable System. The result is an organization which self-organizes around a set of unspoken and unwritten rules and assumptions. Biological evolution is stimulated by environmental change and reproductive isolation: the process of punctuated equilibrium. Corporate innovation shows the same pattern. Innovations in products and processes occur in groups isolated from prevailing mental norms. Successful organic strains possess a genetic capability for adaptation. Organizations which wish to foster learning can develop an equivalent, mental capability. Unlike their biological counterparts they can exert conscious choice and puncture the memetic codes that seek to keep them stable: the mental models of individuals, and the strategies, paradigms and unwritten rules at the company level.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Ager, D. V. (1973) The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record. London: Macmillan Press.
2.
Alchian, A. A. (1950) `Uncertainty, Evolution and Economic Theory', Journal of Political Economy58: 211-221.
3.
Argyris, C. (1982) Reasoning, Learning and Action: Individual and Organisational. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
4.
Argyris, C. (1991) `Teaching Smart People How to Learn', Harvard Business Review (May/June): 99-109.
5.
Axelrod, R. (1984) The Evolution of Co-operation. New York: Basic Books.
6.
Bateson, G. (1973) Steps Towards an Evolution of the Mind. London: Paladin.
7.
Bateson, G. (1979) Mind and Nature. Glasgow: Fontana.
8.
Beer, M. , Eisenstat, R. A. and Spector, B. (1990) `Why Change Programs Don't Produce Change', Harvard Business Review (Nov/Dec): 158-166.
9.
Chandler, A. D. (1977) The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
10.
Cohen, J. and Stewart, I. (1994) The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World. London: Viking.
11.
Henderson, B. D. (1989) `The Origin of Strategy', Harvard Business Review (Nov/Dec): 139-143.
12.
Darwin, C. (1859) The Origin of the Species. London: John Murray.
13.
Dawkins, R. (1976, 2nd edn 1989) The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
14.
Dawkins, R. (1986) The Blind Watchmaker. London: Longman.
15.
De Geus, A. (1988) `Planning as Learning', Harvard Business Review (March/April): 70-74.
16.
Dilts, R. , Hallbom, T. and Smith, S. (1990) Beliefs. Pathways to Health and Well-being. Portland, OR: Metamorphous Press.
17.
Edelman, G. M. (1992) Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind. New York: Basic Books.
18.
Eldredge, N. and Gould, S. J. (1972) `Punctuated Equilibrium: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism' in T. J. M. Schopf (ed.) Models in Paleobiology, pp. 82-115. San Francisco, CA: Freeman Cooper.
19.
Eldredge, N. (1991) The Miner's Canary: Unravelling the Mysteries of Extinction. New York: Simon & Schuster.
20.
Gersick, C. J. (1991) `Punctuated Equilibria as a Model for Organisational Change', Academy of Management Review16(1): 10-23.
21.
Goldratt, E. M. and Cox, J. (1989, revised ed.) The Goal. Aldershot: Gower.
22.
Gould, S. J. (1987) Time's Arrow Time's Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
23.
Gould, S. J. (1989) Wonderful Life. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.
24.
Gould, S. J. (1993a) `Wheels and Wedges', Essay 21 in Eight Little Piggies: Reflections in Natural History. London: Jonathan Cape.
25.
Gould, S. J. (1993b) `Tires to Sandals', Essay 22 in Eight Little Piggies: Reflections in Natural History. London: Jonathan Cape.
26.
Gould, S. J. , ed. (1993) The Book of Life. London: Ebury Hutchison.
27.
Hamel. G. and Prahalad, C. K. (1989) `Strategic Intent', Harvard Business Review (May/June): 63-76.
28.
Hull, D. (1988) Science as a Process. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
29.
Johnson, H. T. and Kaplan, R. S. (1987) Relevance Lost: The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
30.
Kuhn, T. S. (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
31.
Lloyd, T. (1990) The `Nice' Company. London: Bloomsbury.
32.
Lyell, C. (1830) Principles of Geology. London: John Murray.
33.
Maynard-Smith, J. (1975) The Theory of Evolution, 3rd edn.Harmondsworth: Penguin.
34.
Maynard-Smith, J. (1989) Evolutionary Genetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
35.
Mayr, E. (1942) Systematics and the Origin of the Species. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
36.
Mayr, E. (1982) The Growth of Biological Thought. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
37.
Merrel, D. W. (1984) `The Organization-A Living System', The Management Psychologist6(3): 3-14.
38.
Mintzberg, H. (1994) The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning. New York: The Free Press.
39.
Mockler, R. J. (1994) `Strategic Management Research and Teaching: Critical Problems and Possible Solutions', Management Learning25(3): 371-386.
40.
Morgan, G. (1986) Images of Organization. London: Sage.
41.
Moore, J. F. (1993) `Predators and Prey: A New Ecology of Competition', Harvard Business Review (May/June): 75-86.
42.
Parker, D. and Stacey, R. D. (1994) Chaos Management and Economics. London: Institute of Economic Affairs.
43.
Pascale, R. T. (1991) Managing on the Edge. New York: Simon & Schuster.
44.
Porter, M. E. (1980) Competitive Strategy: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. New York: Free Press.
45.
Price, I. and Evans, L. (1993) `Punctuated Equilibrium: An Organic Metaphor for the Learning Organisation', European Forum for Management Development Quarterly Review93(1): 33-35.
46.
Price, I. (1994a) `It's All in the Genes', Management Today (June): 33.
47.
Price, I. (1994b) `The Genetics of the Learning Organisation', in P. De Potter and T. L. Campbell (eds) Proceedings of the First Conference of the European Consortium for the Learning Organisation. La Hulpe: ECLO.
48.
Raup, D. (1991, paperback edn 1993) Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck?Oxford: Oxford University Press.
49.
Rothschild, M. (1992) Bionomics: The Inevitability of Capitalism. London: Futura.
50.
Schaffer, R. H. and Thompson, H. A. (1992) `Successful Change Programs Begin with Results', Harvard Business Review (Jan./Feb.): 80-89.
51.
Scott-Morgan, P. (1994) The Unwritten Rules of the Game. New York: McGraw-Hill.
52.
Scott-Morgan, P. and Price, I. (1994) `Making Change Happen: The Unwritten Rules of the Game', International Strategic Planning Meeting, New York.
53.
Senge, P. M. (1990) The Fifth Discipline. The Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation. New York: Doubleday.
54.
Stacey, R. D. (1993) Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics. London: Pitman.
55.
Tushman, M. L. and Romanelli, E. (1985) `Organisational Evolution: A Metamorphosous Model of Convergence and Reorientation', in L. L. Cummings and B. M. Shaw (eds) Research in Organisational Behaviour, Vol. 7: 171-222.
56.
Waldrop, M. M. (1992) Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos. New York: Simon & Schuster.
57.
Wheatley, M. (1993) Leadership and the New Science. New York: Barrett-Koehler.
58.
Wills, C. (1989) The Wisdom of the Genes: New Pathways in Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
