Bio-inspired management processes and systems (Volume 1)

The book on bio-inspired management processes and systems deals with detailed illustration of all strategies and models inspired from biology and biological systems. it describes a new science that studies nature’s best ideas and then extracts these designs to provide innovative and sustainable management processes and systems. Bio-inspired management processes and systems is the convergence of biology, business, and information technologies. The forces that have shaped the evolution of organizations are similar to those in the evolution of life. Nature and biology serves as a new sources of inspiration for organization theorists and researchers. The chapters address the transfer and application of biological knowledge in management process and systems for achieving sustainable progress. Nature has been performing design experiments on earth's R&D lab for 3.8 billion years. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate innovators; they have found what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here on earth After 3.8 billion years of research and development, failures are considered as fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival. Nature never creates without a functional purpose, and the forms and patterns are operational. This book consists of a wide range of theories with practical examples in management disciplines. Bio-inspired management process and systems attempts to reinvigorate, revitalize, and revive management theory Organizations has seen many changes over the last 50 years, and many of the most striking ones stem from the shift from industrial to knowledge-based economic and social structures. The structure of the next decade’s organization will be biological rather than mechanical. It will behave more like an organism in an ecosystem than a punch press in a factory. They must be able to learn, adapt, and conform rapidly and repeatedly, to master new survival skills in a changing environment. Organizations in the network economy are more like organisms and have been guiding our attention toward the more general issues of survival, organization-environment relations, and organizational effectiveness. New computing technologies and communication schemes are addressed by burgeoning new understanding of biology and nature. In many ways, sustainable business operates in the way that nature does. The areas of management and leadership addressed includes organization theory, business ecosystems, virtual organizations, virtual teams, knowledge management, complex systems, and disruptive innovation. Managers and leaders implement bio- Inspired management techniques method and processes to transform their enterprises into self-renewing, complex, adaptive, self-organizing evolving learning and living organizations and networks. As businesses today are experiencing volatility, they can turn to nature’s example for lessons on adaptation. Institutions and businesses included, in the industrial era have been built for stability, not for change. Companies have become complex and has to face the changing dynamics of environment, more frequently thus evidencing the need for a permanent evolution in order to survive. Complex systems build complexity from the bottom up. Continuous change seems to be the inevitable pattern. Based on the general systems theory, open systems approach can be applied since organizations, which are similar to organisms, are open to the environment. The forces that have shaped the evolution of organizations are similar to those in the evolution of life. As organizations continue to become more complex, managers and leaders should apply lessons learned from 3.5 Billion years of trial and error biological experimentation.