Evolutionary Models in Business. Evgeny Klochkov
unprecedented level of prosperity and technological advance.
Green Organizations
Companies of this type have a pluralistic view of the world that is incompatible with power and hierarchy. Green Companies take the approach that all points of view deserve equal respect. In such organizations, leaders are considered to serve those for whom they are leaders, so sometimes in these types of companies, managers are appointed not “from above”, but “from below.” Subordinates choose their own boss after interviewing suitable candidates, which naturally stimulates the manager to act as an assistant leader. Decision-making processes are “bottom-up”, each opinion is taken into account, and conflicting points of view are brought to a consensus. Group members seek justice, equality, and harmony.
In such companies, employees are integrated into the structure and become part of the whole, maintaining harmonious and close ties with everyone. A deeply rooted culture shared by all employees is the basis and “glue” for the entire structure. This enables granting extended powers to the supervisees. Employees are expected to be able to make the right decision on their own because they share and are guided by common values.
Most Green Organizations strive for lofty goals. For example, Southwest Airlines does not consider itself to be just an airline, but insists that their business is actually freedom. They help their customers get to places they would never have been to if it weren’t for the low prices on Southwest Airlines. Green companies are convinced that businesses bear responsibility not only towards investors, but also towards their employees, customers, suppliers, local communities, society at large, and the environment. The role of the leadership of the organization is to balance interests and keep everyone happy. Social responsibility is often reflected in the mission of Green Organizations, which provides a high level of motivation, encourages innovation and strengthens the corporate spirit of employees. Family can be a metaphor for such companies.
Teal Organizations
The most exciting breakthroughs of the 21st century will not occur because of technology but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human.
Teal Organizations are built upon the idea that all employees are competent and responsible persons that know how to do their job correctly on their own. The Teal Company is self-governing, the organization consisting of small teams, all employees being fully responsible and having all the rights to make all decisions. Power and responsibility are concentrated “below”. In such companies, the goals of the organization’s existence are always formulated, and they never include maximizing profits. These structures are based on three key principles:
1. Self-organization: the organization encourages initiative at the local level; the company is decentralized.
2. Integrity: The company perceives employees as living people with all inherent needs and emotions, even if they are not really needed for work.
3. Evolutionary goal: business expansion and profit making are not primary objectives, it is the project social significance that is of the highest priority.
This approach in building a model of cooperation between people opens up new opportunities. F. Laloux, the author of the idea, is convinced that such companies are seen not as families or inanimate machines, but as living beings that are endowed with their own energy, personality, creative potential, and a development vector. However, within the framework of this study, it is proposed to expand this concept and look at all the models as living organisms that are filled with living people and living relationships between them.
Another issue is that all the previous models of cooperation were not ready to consider the interests of the people in the group, and subordinated everyone to a single goal, turning either into a bureaucracy or soulless machines. The idea that each of the above organizational structures is the next step in the development of the systems of cooperation between people and, being a living organism itself, goes through the same stages of evolution as all living things on the planet is close to the author. In order to understand the logic of these structures development and their transformation of one into another, it is necessary to take a closer look at the theory of evolution, as well as at genetic algorithms. It is these processes that describe as fully as possible the direction of life development as of today and the patterns according to which this development occurs.
1.2. Evolutionary Theory and Genetic Algorithms
Biological evolution (from Lat. Evolutio – “deployment”) is a natural process of development of living nature, accompanied by changes in the genetic composition of populations, adaptations, formation and extinction of species, transformation of ecosystems and the biosphere as a whole.
Charles Darwin was the first to formulate the theory of evolution by natural selection in his work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. He proved that variability and heredity are common properties of all organisms. Due to intensive reproduction, organisms create a sufficient amount of raw material for the selection of the “best” by destroying (eliminating) the “worst”. Moreover, natural selection functions in the presence of two factors – the intensity of reproduction and the struggle for existence. The struggle for existence inevitably follows from the high speed with which organisms increase their numbers. Further, Ch. Darwin suggests that since more individuals are produced than can survive, there must inevitably be a struggle for existence, either between individuals of the same species, or between individuals of different species, or with physical living conditions. Let us consider each type of struggle separately.
Interspecies struggle means a competition for survival between individuals of different species. It has a complex nature and manifests itself in the following types of harmful and beneficial relationships:
a) competition means any antagonistic relationship associated with the struggle for existence, for domination, for food, space, and other resources between organisms, species, or populations of species that need the same resources;
b) predation means a phenomenon, where one organism feeds on the organs and tissues of another, while no symbiotic relationship is observed. It is worth noting that killing the victim is optional;
c) parasitism means a form of symbiosis, where one organism (the parasite) uses another one (the host) as a source of food and/or habitat, while imposing (partially or completely) the regulation of its relations with the external environment upon the host. There are also an obligate form of parasitism, when the parasite cannot exist without the host (e.g., viruses are a typical example), and an optional form of parasitism (e.g., lice, fleas, parasitic worms, etc.);
d) commensalism means relations, where one species, without damage or benefit to itself, contributes to the prosperity of another species (for example, sheep and cattle spread plant seeds on their wool);
e) mutualism means relations, when two species mutually support each other (for example, insects and birds pollinate flowers; cereals and legumes contribute to the growth of each other in grass mixtures).
Intraspecific struggle includes the relationship between individuals of the same species with similar needs for food and territory. It is of the most acute character, since representatives of one species, especially one population, require the same conditions for life and reproduction of the offspring. For example, red cockroaches completely displace black ones, a gray rat displaces a black one, a European bee displaces an Australian one. Competitive intraspecific relationships are widely known everywhere. Birds of the same species compete over nesting sites. Males of many species of mammals and birds enter into a struggle with each other for the possession of a female during the mating season. An excessive increase in the population size exacerbates the struggle for food, therefore, for example, cannibalism, i.e. eating individuals of one’s own species, is widespread among fish. In the