Manufacturing strategy: understanding the fitness landscape

This theoretical paper presents, extends and integrates a number of systems and evolutionary concepts, to demonstrate their relevance to manufacturing strategy formulation. Specifically it concentrates on fitness landscape theory as an approach for visually mapping the strategic options a manufacturing firm could pursue. It examines how this theory relates to manufacturing competitiveness and strategy and proposes a definition and model of manufacturing fitness. In accordance with fitness landscape theory, a complex systems perspective is adopted to view manufacturing firms. It is argued that manufacturing firms are a specific type of complex system – a complex adaptive system – and that by developing and applying fitness landscape theory it is possible to create models to better understand and visualise how to search and select various combinations of capabilities.

[1]  Aleda V. Roth,et al.  Success factors in manufacturing , 1992 .

[2]  Stuart Smith,et al.  The strategic regeneration of manufacturing by changing routines , 1998 .

[3]  R. Punnett,et al.  The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection , 1930, Nature.

[4]  H. Maturana,et al.  Autopoiesis and Cognition : The Realization of the Living (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Scie , 1980 .

[5]  Stanley E. Seashore,et al.  Factorial Analysis of Organizational Performance , 1967 .

[6]  Franco Malerba,et al.  Organization and strategy in the evolution of the enterprise , 1996 .

[7]  Thomas Y. Choi,et al.  Supply networks and complex adaptive systems: Control versus emergence , 2001 .

[8]  Stuart A. Kauffman,et al.  The origins of order , 1993 .

[9]  John D. Sterman,et al.  System Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World , 2002 .

[10]  Stephen Hill,et al.  The theory of the growth of the firm , 1981 .

[11]  L. Bourgeois.  On the Measurement of Organizational Slack , 1981 .

[12]  Joel A. C. Baum,et al.  Self-Organization, Complexity Catastrophe, and Microstate Models at the Edge of Chaos , 2002 .

[13]  Weinberger,et al.  Local properties of Kauffman's N-k model: A tunably rugged energy landscape. , 1991, Physical review. A, Atomic, molecular, and optical physics.

[14]  Louis A. Lefebvre,et al.  Global strategic benchmarking, critical capabilities and performance of aerospace subcontractors , 1998 .

[15]  David Tranfield,et al.  Organisation designs for teamworking , 2002 .

[16]  M. Szwejczewski,et al.  Performance trade‐offs in manufacturing plants , 1997 .

[17]  F. Glen.  The social psychology of organizations , 1976 .

[18]  G. Stalk,et al.  Competing on capabilities: the new rules of corporate strategy. , 1992, Harvard business review.

[19]  H. Von Foerster,et al.  On Self-Organizing Systems and Their Environments , 2003 .

[20]  Henry Mintzberg.  Patterns in Strategy Formation , 1978, International Studies of Management & Organization.

[21]  James C. Collins,et al.  Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies , 1994 .

[22]  Terry Hill,et al.  Manufacturing Strategy: Text and Cases , 1993 .

[23]  Stephen Jay Gould,et al.  Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History , 1977 .

[24]  Mark P. Sharfman,et al.  Antecedents of Organizational Slack , 1988 .

[25]  E. H. Bowman,et al.  Strategy through the Option Lens: An Integrated View of Resource Investments and the Incremental-Choice Process , 1993 .

[26]  J. Crow.  The genetic basis of evolutionary change , 1975 .

[27]  C. Prahalad,et al.  To revitalize corporate performance, we need a whole new model of strategy. Strategic intent. , 1989, Harvard business review.

[28]  Burt,et al.  Natural selection in the wild. , 2000, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[29]  J. Barney.  Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage , 1991 .

[30]  M. Tushman,et al.  Organizational Evolution: A Metamorphosis Model of Convergence and Reorientation , 1985 .

[31]  J. R. Moore,et al.  The theory of the growth of the firm twenty-five years after , 1960 .

[32]  John W. Meyer,et al.  Institutional Environments and Organizations: Structural Complexity and Individualism , 1994 .

[33]  T. Kuhn,et al.  The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. , 1964 .

[34]  Peter M. Allen,et al.  A COMPLEX SYSTEMS APPROACH TO LEARNING IN ADAPTIVE NETWORKS , 2001 .

[35]  Danny Miller,et al.  Environmental Fit Versus Internal Fit , 1992 .

[36]  J. Pfeffer.  Organizations and Organization Theory , 1982 .

[37]  Daniel A. Levinthal.  Learning and Schumpeterian Dynamics , 1996 .

[38]  D. Tranfield,et al.  Towards a Methodology for Developing Evidence-Informed Management Knowledge by Means of Systematic Review , 2003 .

[39]  Ranjay Gulati,et al.  Is Slack Good or Bad for Innovation , 1996 .

[40]  Kathleen M. Eisenhardt,et al.  DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES, WHAT ARE THEY? , 2000 .

[41]  Paul A. David,et al.  Standardization, diversity and learning: Strategies for the coevolution of technology and industrial capacity , 1996 .

[42]  John W. Meyer.  The Effects of Education as an Institution , 1977, American Journal of Sociology.

[43]  Ian P. McCarthy,et al.  Manufacturing competitiveness and fitness landscape theory , 2000 .

[44]  A. Meyer,et al.  Lasting Improvements in Manufacturing Performance: In Search of a New Theory , 1990 .

[45]  Keith Ridgway,et al.  Organisational diversity, evolution and cladistic classifications , 2000 .

[46]  S. Stearns.  Life-History Tactics: A Review of the Ideas , 1976, The Quarterly Review of Biology.

[47]  Neil Fligstein,et al.  Pattern in Corporate Evolution. , 1997 .

[48]  K. Frenken.  A complexity approach to innovation networks. The case of the aircraft industry (1909-1997) , 2000 .

[49]  Stuart A. Kauffman,et al.  Technological evolution and adaptive organizations: Ideas from biology may find applications in economics , 1995, Complex..

[50]  S. Winter,et al.  An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change.by Richard R. Nelson; Sidney G. Winter , 1987 .

[51]  Luk N. Van Wassenhove,et al.  Trade-offs? What Trade-offs? Competence and Competitiveness in Manufacturing Strategy , 1993 .

[52]  Gérard P. Cachon,et al.  Perspective: Complexity Theory and Organization Science , 1999, Organization Science.

[53]  E. D. Weinberger,et al.  The NK model of rugged fitness landscapes and its application to maturation of the immune response. , 1989, Journal of theoretical biology.

[54]  Eric D. Beinhocker.  Robust Adaptive Strategies , 1999 .

[55]  R. Stacey.  The science of complexity: An alternative perspective for strategic change processes , 1995 .

[56]  W. P. Barnett,et al.  The Red Queen in organizational creation and development , 2002 .

[57]  K. Dooley,et al.  Explaining Complex Organizational Dynamics , 1999 .

[58]  David A. Nadler,et al.  A model for diagnosing organizational behavior , 1980 .

[59]  Kenneth K. Boyer.  Longitudinal linkages between intended and realized operations strategies , 1998 .

[60]  J. March.  The Pursuit of Organizational Intelligence , 1999 .

[61]  M. Ruef,et al.  ASSESSING ORGANIZATIONAL FITNESS ON A DYNAMIC LANDSCAPE: AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE RELATIVE INERTIA THESIS , 1997 .

[62]  Lisa A. Mainiero.  On Breaking the Glass Ceiling: The Political Seasoning of Powerful Women Executives , 1994 .

[63]  Lesley Brown,et al.  The new shorter Oxford English dictionary on historical principles , 1993 .

[64]  D. Teece,et al.  The Dynamic Capabilities of Firms: an Introduction , 1994 .

[65]  Ian P. McCarthy,et al.  Technology management - a complex adaptive systems approach , 2003, Int. J. Technol. Manag..

[66]  Benoit Morel,et al.  Through the Looking Glass of Complexity: the Dynamics of Organizations As Adaptive and Evolving Systems , 1999 .

[67]  Nicholas R. Jennings,et al.  Intelligent agents: theory and practice , 1995, The Knowledge Engineering Review.

[68]  Viktor Mikhaĭlovich Glushkov,et al.  An Introduction to Cybernetics , 1957, The Mathematical Gazette.

[69]  R. Lewontin.  The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change , 1974 .

[70]  Ian P. McCarthy,et al.  A Structural and Evolutionary Approach to Change Management , 2002, Comput. Math. Organ. Theory.

[71]  D. Teece,et al.  DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT , 1997 .

[72]  J Swanson,et al.  Business Dynamics—Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World , 2002, J. Oper. Res. Soc..

[73]  Ian P. McCarthy,et al.  Complex systems theory: implications and promises for manufacturing organisations , 2000, Int. J. Manuf. Technol. Manag..

[74]  D. Campbell.  Variation and Selective retention in Socio-Cultural Evolution , 1965 .

[75]  Margaret A. Peteraf.  The cornerstones of competitive advantage: A resource‐based view , 1993 .

[76]  P CachonGérard,et al.  Complexity Theory and Organization Science , 1999 .

[77]  L. V. Valen,et al.  A new evolutionary law , 1973 .

[78]  S. Winter,et al.  An evolutionary theory of economic change , 1983 .

[79]  S. Wheelwright,et al.  Restoring Our Competitive Edge: Competing Through Manufacturing , 1984 .

[80]  C. A. Macken,et al.  Protein evolution on rugged landscapes. , 1989, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.