We asked John Erik present his research for us:
As did the world inventor and wise man Tesla who gave us a rich hint »The desire which leads me into everything that I do is the desire to use the powers of nature in favour of a human."
The aim of my PhD research project is to explore how firms adopt the framework of autopoiesis to balance their goals of innovation and production through business strategies.
Autopoiesis theory describes self-sustaining and self-producing social systems that differ from traditional open business systems. Conventional models, such as Porter’s value chain (1985), have depicted organizations as linear, open-ended systems, where inputs from the environment lead to outputs for a production strategy. However, the shift in the organizational paradigm, exemplified by platforms like Facebook and Google (Cozzolino et al., 2018) and other value configurations, emphasizes the importance of self-contained and closed systems for innovation. These emerging business models, characterized by self-management, autonomy, and self-sustainability, enable autopoiesis or self-production (Zeleny, 2005).
The lack of a systematic approach to self-management hampers an organization's ability to innovate and adapt, thereby compromising its competitive advantage. To address this challenge, firms need to adopt the autopoiesis framework and align their business strategies with autopoietic and allopoietic processes of innovation and production. Understanding the characteristics of autopoietic and allopoietic business models helps distinguish between organic approach with autonomous processes and mechanistic approach with controlled processes.
This PhD proposal seeks to transfer the concepts of autopoiesis from biology to strategic management, using autopoietic and allopoietic business models as the boundary element between an organization and its ecosystem. The practical contribution involves applying these concepts to a real-world example from the chemical industry.
In addition, the research papers primarily highlight three key aspects: a literature review examining strategic management through the lens of autopoiesis, an exploration of its philosophical significance, and a conceptual model that applies autopoiesis to drive innovation and enhance production within organizational strategies. This model encompasses the utilization of autopoietic and allopoietic business models.