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Concepts of Organizational Immunity
Yihua Wang
School of Economics and Management
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, 10084
[email protected]
Hongjun Cao
School of Economics and Management
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, 10084
[email protected]
Chunlai Wu
School of Economics and Management
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, 10084
[email protected]
Guangrui Guo
School of Economics and Management
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, 10084
[email protected]
Ping Lv
Chinese Academy of Science
[email protected]
Abstract
Based on the organizational immunity research findings, the paper redefines the
preliminary constructs of organizational immunity such as organizational immunity,
organizational non-selves, organizational immune system, organizational immune
capabilities and behaviors and organizational immune response modes. In this paper,
we also put forward five basic propositions of organizational immunity: necessity,
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moderation, limitation, lethality and dualism. Furthermore, we propose theoretical
framework of research on organizational immunity. This framework underlines the
evolution relationships among organizational non-selves, organizational diseases and
organizational health under specific organizational background, strategic guidelines
and ecological environments centering on organizational immune design and
improvements.
Introduction
In the 2008 AOM annual meeting，James G. March reviewed the development of
management post-war. At the end of his speech, March said “This is an impressive
success story, a delicate combination of disciplinary rigidity and interdisciplinary
tenacity”. He encouraged young scholars to break the deadlock of the discipline,
and promote integration of disciplines; he advocated making use of individual
psychology organizations to promote the development of theory, and researching the
problem about identity, preference, routines, coherence, coordination, ambiguity and
conflict and so on. In line with March, we have already started organizational
immunity, an interdisciplinary.
1. Literature Review of organization immunity
Through Searching academic journals , Such as the Strategic Management
Journal, Academy of Management, Academy of Management Review, Administrative
Science Quarterly, Organization Science, Organization Studies, Journal of
Management, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Business Research,
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International Business Review, International Journal of Management Reviews,
Journal of International Business Studies, etc., we find that "immunity" and "immune"
in terms of strategic management and the management of all areas involved, such as
internationalization (e.g.,, Delios & Henisz, 2003, (p.231)), M & A Theory (e.g.,
Davis & Stout, 1992 (p 606,609); Thornton, 2001 (p.302)), competition strategy (for
example, Heil & Robertson, 1991 (p.414); Chen & MacMillan, 1992 (p.544)),
organizational learning (e.g., Morris & Moore, 2000 (p.744); Orlikowski, 2002
(p.202)), organizational change (e.g., Ginsberg & Buchholtz, 1990 (p.447); Delacroix
& Swaminathan, 1991 (p.643)) , innovations (e.g., Dougherty & Hardy, 1996
(p.1147)), corporate governance (e.g., Gomez-Mejia et al, 2001 (p.63); Porac et al,
1999 (p.127)), strategic alliances (e.g., Robertson & Gatignon, 1998 (p.517)), and so
on. At the top Chinese journals, "immune" mainly exist in the banking, insurance and
other financial areas (e.g., Wen zhongqiao, 2005, p.94). To sum up, immunity refers
"keep... from ..." and "prevent ... ..." and "resist ... ....”. searching result showed that
the majority of scholars with "immunity", "immune" and "immune" to make an
metaphor to express themselves (Lv Ping, 2008, PhD thesis).
Only a small number of scholars have put forward the concept of immune
organizations, but no one systematically study its mechanism (Figure 1).
Figure 1
authors
thesis
Basic content on immunity
De Geus (1997)
“The
living
company”
How to deal with
the invaders after
the merger and
acquisition
• "Invasion" can be divided into good ones and bad ones.
A company should learn from good ones and resist the bad
ones.
• build the response mechanism on the "invasion" .
• "invaders" often be seen as a threat. the immune
system to resist foreign culture, and result in
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"inflammatory."
Birkinshaw
& Analysis on the
of
Ridderstrale（1999） phenomena
the subsidiary of
transnational
corporations
resisting
the
innovations
·The concept of the immune system: the system, structure,
and tendency to resist innovations.
• the nature of the immune system: the nature of the
conservative, be afraid of strangers, unknown and risk
threats.
Subba
arasimha
（2001）
Dynamic
capabilities
adaptation
• immune analogy with dynamic capabilities, that is, the
ability to produce the diversity of knowledge.
• pointed out that the biological diversity of antigen
recognition with immunization, and have a diversity of the
antibodies ability to adapt to the environment.
Li
zhanxiang
(2000）
“contradictions
Management
Science”
The nature
management
and
of
Immunity refers the physiological function of a body
identify the “selves” and “non-selves” components and
eliminate foreign bodies. immune abnormalities may have
their own organizations injury. Immunity has three
functions: defense, maintain and balance internal body,
and supervise.
• Corporation immunity refers to the competence of the
body's physical ability.
Since 2005, we have started to take metaphor research, case studies, and
empirical research methods to have the following content (Figure 2).
Figure 2
authors
thesis
Basic content on immunity
Xu bo（2005）
Strategic
management and
organizational
adaptation.
• Corporation immunity: the capabilities of a company to
identify the inside and outside “non-self”, to eliminate the
harmful factors and have a memory, so as to safeguard the
health of company.
• The functions of Corporation immunity: scanning,
defense, self-stability.
• The structure of Corporation immunity: Central
Immunity, peripheral Immunity, special Immunity.
•
The
responses
of
Corporation
immunity:
adaptive/specific Immunity, native/non specific Immunity.
Strategic
management and
organizational
adaptation.
·Four concepts about organizational immunity were
proposed: Organizational non-self, organizational
immunity, organizational health.
·A framework about organizational immunity were
proposed: The inter-relation and evolvement of
“An
Exploring
Study
of
organizational
immunity.”
Wang yihua & Lv
ping（2006）
“The Study on
organizational
immunity”.
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Organizational immunity, Organizational
Organizational disease, Organizational health.
non-self,
Song
zhicheng
（ 2006 ） “The
evolvement
of
organizational
immunity”.
Strategic
management and
organizational
adaptation.
From perspectives of complex systematic theory and
evolutionary theory, he studied two response modes and
the organizational evolutionary interaction process. In the
practical situation, there are four types of match between
the enterprise system and its immunity system, right
match, pro-match, lagging match and irrelative match.
Su xiaoyang（2007）
“An
Exploring
Study of Enterprise
Immune
Effectiveness”
Strategic
management and
organizational
adaptation.
Almost every enterprise has the issue of how make the
Actual State (AS) of Enterprise’s immune System (EIS) fit
the Ideal State (IS) of EIS well in order to keep Enterprise
being a “healthy” state. The degree of matching between
the AS of EIS and the IS of EIS was named the Enterprise
Immune Effectiveness (EIE).
·Offer a new perspective through new dimensions of
quality state and quantity state to the Organizational
adaptability Study.
Lv ping (2008）
“Research on the
Behavior
and
Mechanism
of
Organizational
Immunology”
Strategic
management and
organizational
adaptation.
·Proposed the concept of organizational immune behavior:
non-specific immunology and specific immunology. She
decomposed the non-specific immunology construct into
organizational structure, rules and culture, and
decomposed specific immunology construct into
organizational scanning, defense and memory.
·Proposed the concept of immune recognition, defense and
memory.
·Proposed the concept of organizational immune
mechanism and organizational immune performance.
2. Basic concepts of organizational immunity and reconstruction of the theory
We are convinced that the natural laws revealed by the medical immunity are of
very important Enlightenment to mankind on how to design and improve
organization's defense system. Based on our preliminary studies, we set forth the basic
concepts of organizational immunity further.
2.1 What is organizational immunity?
Organizational immunity is the self-organizing system, the ability and the act to,
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dynamically, identify and remove harmful non-selves both inside and outside of the
organization and remembers them, through which a corporate maintains healthy in an
environment of great risk. The following aspects are involved to understand this
construct:
2.2 What are organizational non-selves?
Organizational non-selves are the targets of the organizational immunity function.
They are various harmful factors that result in the shift of organizational goals, the
disorder of the mechanisms and the abnormality of the organizational behaviors. They
prevent organizations from adapting to the dynamic environment. Organizational
non-selves are mainly classified into three categories: external non-self (external
harmful factors), internal non-self (internal harmful factors) and the internal aging
factors. In nature, organizational non-selves can also be divided into natural factors
(ice disaster, earthquake, tsunami, etc.) and man-made factors (such as blending
harmful substances in the milk powder, stock market speculation and the transfer of
risks); or material factors (pollution, prices, poor quality, etc.) and spiritual factors
(Poor sense of responsibility, rigid thinking, lose morale, and so on); or known and
unknown factors; or common factors and lethal factors (leading to serious crisis, even
organization death). Organization immunity ought to monitor various non-selves
systematically, bear the corresponding immunity ability, take appropriate immunity
acts, and pay special attention to identify and defense the attacks of the strange or
deadly non-selves before it is too late.
2.3 Structure design of the organizational immunity system
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The organizational immunity system is a complex self-organizing system with
the capacity of evolution. In organization it consists of a lot of departments, posts,
systems, culture, techniques, human resource etc. It can be divided into three parts: (1)
central immunity system, which consists of the leaders of the immunity system (such
as the Board of Directors, senior managers, etc.). The central immunity system affects
the design, investment, emphasis and redirection of the immunity system. It also
decides the status and the authenticity of the immunity system. (2) Full-time
immunity system, which is specialized to identify, remove all types of hazards, and
remember them. It is a subsystem of the immunity system, consisting of the board of
supervisors, financial auditing department, quality control department, strategic
warning department, technical information department, market research department,
public relations department, performance appraisal department, and trade unions, etc.
The range of its distribution, the effects of its capacity, the strength of its driving force
and the direction of its effect have direct impact on the immunity of the organization.
(3) Peripheral immunity system, which consists of all the other business sectors and
supporting sectors (such as product development, procurement, marketing services,
information systems, human resources, etc.). It realizes self-control, mutual
supervision and positive feedback through the rules developed by the full-time
immunity System in line with the direction designated by the central immunity system.
Similar to the management idea of "the full people, the total factor, and the whole
process" advocated by the TQC management theory, they form a powerful defense
system consisting of all factors. The three sub-systems of the organizational immunity
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system evolve in the process of division and cooperation. They promote each other in
the process of mutual restraint. The central immunity system is the key subsystem that
decides the ability level of the whole immunity system and the vitality of the
systematical conduct.
2.4 Basic functions of organizational immunity
In the organizational immunity system, the ability of immunity forms and
immunity act bring about the functions of organizational immunity. The process of
organizational immunity includes three reiterative conducts (recognize - defense memory). Recognition is the first step of immunity behavior, and its timeliness and
accuracy directly impact the effectiveness of the clearance function and memory
function; defense is the second act of immunity, its pertinence and validity directly
impact the effectiveness of the immunity effect; memory is the third immunity act, its
accuracy and its continuity directly impact the effectiveness and efficiency of future
organizational immunity conduct. Immunity acts are based on the immunity ability,
and, in turn, they promote the upgrading of immunity ability.
2.4.1 Organizational immunity recognition
Organizational immunity recorganization is the function of systematically and
dynamically identifying adverse external factors, harmful internal factors or internal
aging factors. It’s a process of "monitor - find - judge - Transfer". In terms of time, it
focus on not only the real non-selves, but also on the future non-selves; In nature, it
focus on not only the known non-selves(such as illegal acts led by greed), but also
on strange non-selves (such as the shortage of cash led by the crisis of second-grade
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loan in the financial System) specially; in terms of scope, the immunity system not
only aims at the non-selves "outside" of itself, but also at the non-selves in the
immunity system itself. Immunity recognition is also a process of repeating cycle;
deviation or invalid of immunity recognition will happen when the ability of any link
is poor or the chain is broken.
2.4.2 Organizational immunity defense
Organizational immunity defense is the function of organizations to resist or
eliminate the harmful external factors, the harmful internal factors or the internal
aging
factors.
It’s
a
coordination-elimination"
process
of
"clone
-
variation
-
selection
–
on the premise of organizational immunity recognition.
So-called cloning refers to capacity of rapid replication, training, learning,
concentration amongst the factors’ (such as people, rules and system, culture,
technology, etc.) related to the Organizational immunity system. So-called variation
refers to the appropriate transformation and innovation(for example, the improvement
of personal capacity, the adjustment of rules and regulations and the human resources
restructuring, etc.) acting against the organizational non-selves during the cloning
process of the factors related to immunity system in the central, full-time, and
peripheral immunity system . The transformation and innovation occur in the
interaction between individuals, teams and systems, and they help form new and
effective organizational immunity behavior and capability. So-called selection refers
to the capability to quickly and accurately select the best one from many elements of
the immunity system and responding programs. So-called co-ordination refers to the
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capability to coordinate the work steps, acts’ rhythm and the strength of the conduct,
in order to avoid bottlenecks and imbalances. By the nature of the immunity defense,
it aim at not only known non-selves, but at unknown non-selves; by the area it resists,
it aims at not only the non-selves outside of the system, but also the non-selves inside
of the immunity system itself. If there are some wrongs or disorders in the immunity
system itself, the organizational immunity system will do great damage to the
organizational health.
2.4.3 Organizational immunity memory
Organizational immunity memory is the function to "record - sum - preserve disseminate" the acts and effects of the organizational immunity surveillance and
immunity defense. By the nature, it remembers not only the success experience, but
also the failure experience; by the scope, it remember the acts and effects not only
inside the immunity system, but also outside the immunity system; by the means, it
remember not only in the open way (such as to revise and improve the
organizational structure, rules and regulations and the technical means), but also in
hidden way (such as the raising awareness to the risk of the people, the improvement
of mature degree in values, ways of thinking, emotion , and so on). Of course, the
error or loss of organizational immunity memory will affect the future efficiency of
immunity.
2.5 The innate and acquired immunity response of organizational immunity
system
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The mechanism of organizational immunity response – there are two types of
immunity response mechanisms in organizational immunity system. One is the innate
general immunity response, and the other is the acquired specific immunity response.
(1) The innate general immunity response refers to the function to deal with any
non-self to the organization that is designed and arranged at the beginning of the
organization by the team of Entrepreneurs. Its maturation degree is affected by the
entrepreneur's experience in the past, and by the environment in which an
organization lives. It is natural that in good economic situation, most of the
entrepreneurs are so busy in making money, paying very little attention to designing
and building the immunity system (for example, only set up financial monitoring
system), that the function of innate general immunity system to " recognize - defense remember " is not complete, and its effect is limited; and those who have experienced
setbacks or are familiar with international norms of business management, will pay
more attention to the design and construction of the business innate immunity system
in the first place. (2)The acquired immunity response mechanism is formed step by
step in the process of growth, after encountering some types of non-selves. The
organization has a potential to deal with all types of non-selves, and to maintain their
health through learning. Therefore, the function of acquired immunity to" recognize defense - remember" has the features of pertinence, diversity, optimization and of
from passive to active.
The acquired immunity response mechanism for those known non-selves in the
organization will form routines that lead to much better efficiency and effectiveness
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(For example, the general quality testing in Eron). The innate Immunity response
mechanism for unknown non-selves is facing greater challenges. Human beings have
not been able to identify and overcome HIV or SARS virus, and many people have
lost their lives. This has promoted greater investment in medical research, and has led
to medical development in-depth. The enterprises are facing the same problems now.
The more risks in the environment, the more unknown organizational non-selves there
are; the greater costs the organization waste; the more an organization spends in
acquired immunity, the more powerful, flexible, fast, accurate ability to "surveillance
- find - judge - transfer" of immunity recognition is needed. It is the same to the
ability to "clone - vary - select – coordinate－eliminate " of the immunity defense and
the ability to " record - sum - preserve - disseminate" of the immunity memory.
Otherwise, the organization can not be sustained survival. Those enterprises without
the strength to bear against unknown non-selves, or those enterprises without enough
resources to build acquired immunity capacity will be in trouble. Inferred from the
Classification Model of Environmental Risk ( Burgelman, 2003) , the more turbulent
in the risk environment, i.e. the general environment and the players in industry
changing at the same time, the more intensive the change of organization's business
model will be.
Thus, the acquired immunity response mechanism of the organizational defense
systems is of particular importance.
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surveillance
record
clone
vary
find
sum
select
judge
preserve
coordinate
transfer
eliminate
disseminate
2.6 organizational immunity's basic proposition immune:
Proposition 1: Organizational immunity is a "self-organizing" organization. It is
a complex system and open to organization and environments, interaction and
evolution with the organization and environment.
Proposition 2:
Organizational immunity is of an "absolute necessity”
organization. Immune system is necessary to all lives; without efficient immune
system, human body may die. Particularly, in the risk environment, specific immune
functions of the organization difficult to shake off a weak disease or death fate.
13
Proposition 3: Being appropriate and moderate is necessary for organizational
immunity to function well. Either hypersensitive or immunodeficiency can make an
organization sick even dead. Only when it functions appropriately and moderately,
can organizational immunity keep the organization healthy for good.
Proposition 4: Organizational immunity function comes with limitation.
Immunity system just cannot rescue an organization in any condition, especially,
when it is atrocious. Organization immunity system can only function normally when
the environment bears the least conditions for an organization to survive.
Proposition 5: Autoimmune damage can be fatal. Immunity system should be the
guard of an organization, but when it cannot indentify and resist fatal non-selves,
serious disease of itself can make the organization dead.
3. A working framework for organizational immunity research
Organizational immunity involves four constructs. They are (1) organization
non-self, (2) organization health, (3) organization disease, and (4) organization
therapy, which are to be defined. Organizational immunity functions under an
ecological circumstance of organizations and strategy. Thus we propose a working
framework for future organizational immunity research (Figure 3).
Figure 3
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Organizational
health
Organizational
non-self
Organizational
therapy
Organizational
immunity
Organization
Strategy
Organizational
disease
Environment
4. Foundations and research methodology of organizational immunity.
The organizational immunity is based on the theories of strategic management
and organization theory, biology and medical immunology, and complexity systems
theory. As study of cross-disciplinary, we will explore the organizational immunity’s
contribution to the theory of organizational adaptation. Our research will be guided by
the basic method (case study, empirical analysis, deductive reasoning, biological
metophor), and absorption of research methods of biology and systems science
(Figure 4).
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Figure 4
Biological
Immunology
Business
Management
Organizational
Immunology
Complex System
Theories
Acknowledgement
Organizational Immunity Research has just begun; there are a lot of areas to
explore. Sincerely thanks to the following persons who had given us understanding,
encouragement, criticism and direction in our studying. Without their helpness, our
research can not come today. They are:
1. Chinese scholars: Tsinghua University: (Chen Guoquan, Yang Baiying,
Weijie, Jin Zhanming, Ning Xiangdong); Peking University :(Zhou Changhui, Wu
Yajun); Xian jiaotong University (Li Yuan); Nanjing University: (Liu Hong),
Zhejiang University ( Weijiang), Renmin University of China (Li zhanxiang, Wang
Fengbin, Qin Zhihua).
2.
Foreign scholars: Mintzberg, Mingfang Li, Burgelman, Justin Tan, Lewin,
Eisenhaldt, Child, Galaskwikwicz, Donald D. Davis.
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