Holonic Model - Organization Structures
Organizational Theory and Design
* From Ants to Bluetooth : Exploring the Holonic Enterprise * United we stand, divided we fall : The role of culture in an organization
From Ants to Bluetooth
Exploring the Holonic Enterprise
The ants in my kitchen formed a steady trail to the sugar container. One of nature’s simple yet fascinating creations is the ant. Every member of this species possess identical qualities: disciplined, hardworking and focused. Together they strive to create and sustain an ant colony, collect food and keep the queen ant safe. We can examine the features, extent, nature and overarching characteristics of an ant hill and in doing so recognize that our thinking of what constitutes the hill connotes the dynamic emergent properties of the countless interactions and transactions that take place over time among all the individual members of the community of interest, all within their unique ecological contexts.(Ulieru, Este). If we analyze an ant, at the individual level, take into account its various organs and behavioral patterns, it would not be possible to predict that thousands of this individual subunit will create the colony which they reside in. The only way the output can be realized is if we took multiple ants together and decided to watch their behavior. The aggregate behavior of all these individual objects would render the output Holonic and generative and would define the macro behavior of the behavior of the individual unit. The same concept can be extended to what is termed as a Holonic enterprise. The Holonic enterprise comprises of several enterprises working together to produce a single larger output.
The term Holon was coined by Arthur Koestler to denominate entities simultaneously exhibiting both autonomy and cooperation capabilities which demand balancing of the contradictory forces that define each of these properties on a behavioral level. The discussion on Holonic enterprise
* From Ants to Bluetooth : Exploring the Holonic Enterprise * United we stand, divided we fall : The role of culture in an organization
From Ants to Bluetooth
Exploring the Holonic Enterprise
The ants in my kitchen formed a steady trail to the sugar container. One of nature’s simple yet fascinating creations is the ant. Every member of this species possess identical qualities: disciplined, hardworking and focused. Together they strive to create and sustain an ant colony, collect food and keep the queen ant safe. We can examine the features, extent, nature and overarching characteristics of an ant hill and in doing so recognize that our thinking of what constitutes the hill connotes the dynamic emergent properties of the countless interactions and transactions that take place over time among all the individual members of the community of interest, all within their unique ecological contexts.(Ulieru, Este). If we analyze an ant, at the individual level, take into account its various organs and behavioral patterns, it would not be possible to predict that thousands of this individual subunit will create the colony which they reside in. The only way the output can be realized is if we took multiple ants together and decided to watch their behavior. The aggregate behavior of all these individual objects would render the output Holonic and generative and would define the macro behavior of the behavior of the individual unit. The same concept can be extended to what is termed as a Holonic enterprise. The Holonic enterprise comprises of several enterprises working together to produce a single larger output.
The term Holon was coined by Arthur Koestler to denominate entities simultaneously exhibiting both autonomy and cooperation capabilities which demand balancing of the contradictory forces that define each of these properties on a behavioral level. The discussion on Holonic enterprise
References: 7. Fig 1. Dynamic Virtual Clustering Pattern in the Holonic Enterprise : The Holonic Enterprise as a Collaborative Information Ecosystem, Mihaela Ulieru, Scott S. Walker, Robert W. Brennan