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Change
Management MGMT625
VU
Lesson
# 14
APPLICATION
OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
Thetheory
has general applicationvarious
functional areas of management
likeproduction,
marketing,finance
and quality managementetc.
Here environment meansmarket
and one can
observe
the application of mutation concept.
Forinstance take the case of
electronic industry or
communicationtechnologies
as there appears a huge variety of products in a
quick succession of
time,
and the success of any
newtechnological product
(variation) is a matter of sheer
chance.
Going
by this theory it is the
environmentwhich plays
decisive role or influence in the
selection of
forms,processes
and practices in organization. It is the
environment whichselects and
decides the
validity
of organization form, process and
practices to become
effectiveand
efficient.
Second
evidence we found in the
QualityManagement Movement
(QMM)which is well
supported
by
evolutionary theory. For e.g.
Total Quality
Management(TQM) means,
continuous,marginal or
incrementalchanges
on day-to-day bases in all
functional areas like on
customer-preferences,
product-attributes,organising
in production as well.Winter, a
scholar, whosework on this
subject
is
quite known, links QMM
fromevolutionary economic characterisation of a
firm to evolutionary
economic
theory. There are three
aspects of
organizationchanges:
1.
Corporate knowledge resides in the
organisational capabilities embedded in
organisational
routines.These
routines do not arisefrom
isolated managerial decisions but
from a
process
of organisational learning.
Theseroutines have a large
tacit component of
learning.
2.
There is no sharp distinction between the
firm's technical and organisation
component.
Systematic
routines may result in
creating opportunities
forimprovement.
3.
The capabilities of a
firmare not from
universaltechnical hand book
but areidiosyncratic
(individuality
or personality) outcome of unique
firmhistories
(evolving)
QualityManagement
focuses more on productionprocess
than outcomes. Onemajor
benefit of QM
is
the forcing of the organisation to
continue the evolution
(changeover time) of
itssuccessful
routines
and avoid the danger of stagnation in a
competitiveworld.
Managerialfocus
It
is important to note that by
default organisations arecontrol-oriented
and autocratic in nature
thereforeevolutionary
organization too is transformation of
autocratic organization at one
time-to-
participative
one at another time. Therefore
buildingevolutionary organisation
(howto?) is
recurringtheme
these days as in evolutionary
organization flow of authority is
upward(and
Weberianconcept
of rational top down bureaucracy is no
more valid in present times). So
the
evolutionarytheorist,
instead of reliance on hierarchy,
authority, span of control
offersknowledge-
orientedorganisation
and hence focuses on discovery,
application and dissemination of
knowledge.
Anotherdistinct
perspective of evolutionary theorists is that
they tend to incorporate
principles of
managementdeveloped
from personal experience andobservation
(values) andbelieves that
resort
to
traditional way of
authoritymay be wrong and bad
application of authority.
It
also focuses on the
organizationprocesses as well
whichmeans continuous
improvement in
decisionmaking,
communicating and controlling.One
such common example can be
cited is that of
a
zero defect philosophy in context of
production.
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