This document discusses constructing a formal cladistic classification of manufacturing systems based on techniques used in biological taxonomy. It presents a seven-stage framework for developing a manufacturing "cladogram" or phylogenetic tree. A cladistic classification could provide a standardized way to study organizational diversity and evolution. It may help clarify different types of emerging manufacturing systems and their relationships. Mapping the evolutionary history and relationships between manufacturing systems could provide insights to help organizations adapt to changes in their operating environment. The document also reviews different approaches to classification in biology and assumptions required to apply cladistics to developing a classification of manufacturing organizations.
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Organisational diversity, evolution and cladistic classifications
1. Omega 28 (2000) 77±95
www.elsevier.com/locate/orms
Organisational diversity, evolution and cladistic
classi®cations
Ian McCarthy a,*, Keith Ridgway a, Michel Leseure a, Nick Fieller b
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Sheeld, Mappin Street, Sheeld S1 3JD, UK
b
School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sheeld, Houns®eld Road, Sheeld S3 RH, UK
Received 1 December 1996; accepted 1 March 1998
Abstract
This article presents a case for the construction of a formal classi®cation of manufacturing systems using
cladistics, a technique from the biological school of classi®cation. A seven-stage framework for producing a
manufacturing cladogram is presented, along with a pilot case study example. This article describes the role that
classi®cation plays in the pure and applied sciences, the social sciences and reviews the status of existing
manufacturing classi®cations. If organisational diversity and organisational change processes are governed by
evolutionary mechanisms, studies of organisations based on an evolutionary approach such as cladistics could have
potential, because as March [March JG. The evolution of evolution. In: Baum JAC, Singh JV, editors. Evolutionary
dynamics of organizations. Oxford University Press, 1994. p. 39±52], page 45, states ``there is natural speculation
that organisations, like species can be engineered by understanding the evolutionary processes well enough to
intervene and produce competitive organisational e€ects''. It is suggested that a cladistic study could provide
organisations with a ``knowledge map'' of the ecosystem in which they exist and by using this phylogenetic and
situational analysis, they could determine coherent and appropriate action for the speci®cation of change. # 2000
Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Cladistics; Manufacturing; Management; Evolution; Classi®cation
1. Introduction systems. Carper and Snizek [1, p. 65], in their review
of organisational classi®cations concluded that ``the
Why construct a classi®cation? This question needs most important step in conducting any form of scienti-
to be addressed in order to understand the bene®ts ®c enquiry involves the ordering, classi®cation, or
and applications that any classi®cation could o€er, let other grouping of the objects or phenomena under in-
alone a cladistic classi®cation. The desire to classify vestigation''.
transcends all disciplinary boundaries whether the enti- In an amusing categorisation of classi®cations,
ties under study are biological organisms, chemical el- Good [2], a noted mathematician, provided a list
ements or as in the case of this paper, manufacturing which suggested ®ve purposes for performing classi®-
cation: (1) for mental clari®cation and communication;
(2) for discovering new ®elds of research; (3) for plan-
* Corresponding author. Tel. +44-114-222-7745; fax: +44- ning an organisational structure or machine, (4) as a
114-222-7890. check list and (5) for fun. Cormack [3] used this categ-
E-mail address: i.p.mccarthy@sheeld.ac.uk (I. McCarthy) orisation in his lecture to the Royal Statistical Society
0305-0483/00/$ - see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 3 0 5 - 0 4 8 3 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 3 0 - 4
2. 78 I. McCarthy et al. / Omega 28 (2000) 77±95
to illustrate the role and bene®ts that classi®cation manufacturing companies, but with no reference to, or
o€ers research. Cormack summarised the bene®ts of a application of the science of taxonomy. This would
hierarchical classi®cation, stating that ``the information appear to be a major shortcoming, which reduces the
about the entities is represented in such a way that it usefulness, stability and accuracy of the classi®cations.
will suggest fruitful hypotheses which cannot be true Lessons should be drawn from biological taxonomy in
or false, probable or improbable, only pro®table or an attempt to stimulate further investigations into this
unpro®table'' [3, p. 346]. established problem based on the disciplines and rules
Haas, Hall and Johnson [4] discussed four advan- regularly used by the biological scientist''. Supporting
tages of having a realistic classi®cation. Such a classi®- the need for an organisational classi®cation is
cation could (1) be strategically helpful for re®ning Romanelli [28, p. 82], who states ``despite the ease with
hypotheses; (2) aid in the investigation of the validity which we may identify meaningful groupings of organ-
and utility of existing typologies based on logical and isations, no commonly accepted classi®cation scheme
intuitive considerations; (3) serve as a basis for predict- has been developed''.
ing organisational decisions or change and (4) permit With this stimulus, a project funded by the
the researchers to readily specify the universe from Engineering Physical Sciences Research Council (Grant
which their samples of organisations could be drawn. No. GR/K97974) was initiated to investigate the feasi-
McKelvey [5] went further by arguing that the formu- bility of constructing cladistic classi®cations of manu-
lation of a classi®cation is a necessary prerequisite for facturing systems. The remainder of this paper details
the maturation of organisation science and that, if a the methodology, ®ndings and conclusions of that
formal and scienti®c classi®cation existed, there would study.
be no need for contingency theory. Biologists do not
need contingency theory because their classi®cations
make it clear that one does not apply ®ndings about
reptiles to mammals when working at a speci®c level 2. Introduction to the biological schools of classi®cation
of the classi®cation.
The argument for creating a classi®cation is to some There are two main principles of classi®cation within
extent demonstrated by the large number of typologies the biological sciences: the phenetic and the phyloge-
and classi®cations that have been produced by netic principles. From these two underlying principles
researchers from the social sciences and applied emerge three approaches to classi®cation, or schools of
sciences and that many academic disciplines teach with classi®cation: phenetic, evolutionary and cladistic (refer
reference to some form of classi®cation. It should be to Fig. 1). The three schools of classi®cation are di€er-
noted that a typology is a description of groups, whose entiated on the basis of how closely they adhere to a
di€erences are identi®ed solely accordingly to the purely phylogenetic principle. That is, the species are
research focus of the investigator. Existing schemes classi®ed according to how recently they share a com-
which embrace the subject of organisations include: or- mon ancestor. Phenetic classi®cations are non-evol-
ganisational strategies [6], voluntary associations [7], utionary and are thus at one end of the evolutionary
canning ®rms and farmers unions [8], general organis- focus scale, whilst cladistics is a purist approach to the
ational classi®cations [9±11] and manufacturing-based phylogenetic principle. Evolutionary classi®cations are
classi®cations [12±25]. For a review of the above or- a synthesis of the phenetic and phylogenetic principles.
ganisational typologies, the reader is referred to Refs. Phylogenetic classi®cations have become known as
[1,26,27]. cladistic classi®cations, because the phylogenetic prin-
The authors of this article sought a classi®cation ciple was defended by the German entomologist Willi
which would facilitate the storage, alignment and Hennig [29] and supporters of his ideas called the prin-
development of structural models of manufacturing ciple phylogenetic systematics, which has now evolved
systems. It was intended that this classi®cation of into the term cladism (from the Greek `klados' for
models would provide researchers and consultants with branch).
a generic library of structural solutions for enabling The cladistic school's approach to classi®cation
manufacturing systems to maximise their operating involves studying the evolutionary relationships
e€ectiveness. The de®ciencies of existing classi®cations between entities with reference to the common ancestry
of manufacturing systems, prohibited the realisation of of the group. Constructing a classi®cation using evol-
the intended bene®ts of combining a library of ideal utionary relationships is considered bene®cial, because
models (solutions) with a workable classi®cation of the classi®cation will be unique and unambiguous.
manufacturing systems. This issue was discussed by This is because evolution is actual and mankind is cur-
McCarthy [27, p. 46], who concluded that ``previous rently unable to change evolutionary history, thus pro-
research into developing manufacturing classi®cations viding the classi®cation with an external reference
has been based on a comprehensive understanding of point. With phenetic classi®cations there is no such
3. I. McCarthy et al. / Omega 28 (2000) 77±95 79
Fig. 1. Biological schools of classi®cation.
reference point and thus in the words of Ridley [29, p. and typifying the emergence of new manufacturing sys-
367], ``Cladism is theoretically the best justi®ed system tems. This would help clarify the confusion on whether
of classi®cation. It has a deep philosophic justi®cation fractal, virtual and holonic manufacturing systems
which phenetic and evolutionary classi®cations lack'' actually exist or are simply buzz words. This was an
Reviews of the three schools of classi®cation [29±31] issue raised by the Engineering Physical Sciences
assess the schools on their ability to produce natural Research Council [32]. A cladistic classi®cation of
and objective classi®cations, rather than arti®cial and manufacturing systems could provide knowledge and
subjective classi®cations. Cladistics satis®es both these observations on the patterns of distributed character-
criteria, as the entities within a cladistic classi®cation istics exhibited by the manufacturing systems over
will resemble each other in terms of the de®ning char- their evolutionary development. This knowledge could
acters and the non-de®ning characters (characters not lead to pro®table hypotheses about the macro- and
used to represent the phylogenetic relationships). micro-evolutionary mechanisms which in¯uence manu-
Cladistics conforms to the criteria of objectivity facturing competitiveness and survival. Finally, many
because it represents a real unambiguous and natural organisations live their lives looking forward, but to
property of the entity (evolutionary relationships) and comprehend themselves they must look backwards.
thus di€erent rational people, working independently The resultant comprehension cannot be used to extrap-
should be able to agree on a classi®cation. There could olate the future, but it does inform them of where they
be valid disagreements between independent investi- are and how they got there, and this information is
gators, but these will be down to assumptions and dis- vital for any organisation intending to embark on a
agreements on the character data and not the journey of change.
underlying philosophy. One of the greatest strengths of
the cladistic approach is that the representation of the
classi®cation (the cladogram), illustrates the data, 3. Cladistics
assumptions and results, making all decisions transpar-
ent. This not the case with existing organisational The application of cladistics to manufacturing sys-
classi®cations. Section 5 of this paper presents a dis- tems implies certain assumptions about organisational
cussion on the confusion which exists between the forms, their existence and diversity. Cladistic classi®-
types of manufacturing system which are believed to cations are produced according to how recently they
exist. share a common ancestor. This means that two manu-
In summary, a cladistic classi®cation of manufactur- facturing species that share a recent and common
ing systems would provide a system for conducting, ancestor will be placed in the same group and two
documenting and coordinating comparative studies of manufacturing species sharing a more distant common
manufacturing organisations. Such a system could pro- ancestor might be placed in di€erent groups, but they
vide the consensus for formally approving, validating would be in the same family. As the common ancestor
4. 80 I. McCarthy et al. / Omega 28 (2000) 77±95
of two manufacturing species becomes more and more inheritance is controlled by the organisational
distant, they are grouped further and further apart in equivalent of genes (knowledge transfer or memes
the classi®cation. Eventually all organisations could be [38] or competence elements (comps) [36]), which
placed in a classi®cation possibly known as the `king- are passed on to o€spring by chromosomes
dom of organisations'. For this principle of classi®- (people, communication, society) in the same form
cation to apply to manufacturing organisations and as they were inherited from the previous gener-
their systems, investigators must agree that organis- ation [39]. If heredity were perfect, the principle of
ations evolve and that as new organisational forms variation would not exist. The principle of natural
emerge, it is possible to identify the distinguishing selection suggests that manufacturing systems with
characteristics from the old organisational forms. a superior adaptation generate similar manufactur-
Supporting this assumption are organisational theorists ing systems (o€spring) and as long as the o€spring
who have not produced a complete theory of organis- resemble their parent, the characters of manufac-
ational evolution, but have proposed some key con- turing systems that generate more o€spring than
cepts which include: organisational ecology [33,34], average will increase in frequency over time. This
organisational systematics [35,36], the evolution of new concept is supported by Hannan and Freeman [34]
organisational forms [28] and the dynamics of organis- who believe that selection pressures, force organis-
ational speciation [37]. These concepts and the assump- ations to imitate the successful organisations, the
tions that accompany them attempt to understand the result being a reduction in organisational diversity
forces which determine which organisational form is and a net increase of a particular type of organis-
viable for a certain environment; the mechanisms ational form. The fourth principle, the principle of
which exist to preserve organisational forms and the adaptation, refers to the variations in manufactur-
mechanisms which are passed from one generation of ing systems which provide an advantage for sur-
organisations to another. viving and existing. This is when manufacturing
In summary, the assumptions which govern the con- systems change so as to maintain existence.
struction of a manufacturing cladogram are listed
below:
. Manufacturing systems evolve and have ancestors. 3.1. The cladogram
This is evident by the way historians portray the
advancement of manufacturing companies from pre- A cladogram is a tree structure capable of represent-
historic man with his tools, to ancient workshops, to ing the evolutionary history of a group of manufactur-
the guild of craftsman, to the cottage industries and ing systems. The tree structure illustrates the
to factories which eventually became mechanised relationships between the di€erent members of the
and automated. group under study, according to the acquisition and
. Manufacturing systems speciate. The Ford Motor polarity of characters.
Company is described today as a lean producer, but Fig. 2 shows a group of manufacturing species con-
its history demonstrates that it once was a craft sisting of Ancient craft systems, standardised craft sys-
shop which developed into an intensive mass produ- tems, modern craft systems, neocraft systems and skilled
cer. This suggests that the Ford manufacturing large scale producers. This ®gure is a section from the
plants have gone through at least two speciation master cladogram of automotive assembly plants (Fig.
events to produce new `breeds of organisation'. 3 and Table 1). This pilot study was undertaken to
. Manufacturing systems are subject to the theory of provide a worked example which would introduce the
natural selection. This theory consists of four basic reader to cladistics and the various types of cladistic
principles: the principle of variation, the principle of grouping that exist. The construction of this cladogram
heredity, the principle of natural selection and the is reported in Section 4. It is important to note that
principle of adaptation [29]. The principle of vari- this was a pioneering study and that many of the types
ation states that there has to be variation within a of manufacturing system proposed in Figs. 2 and 3
population of manufacturing systems. These vari- will not be known to the reader. This is not because
ations need to occur and happen at random. The they are newly formed types of manufacturing systems,
principle of heredity states that some manufactur- but rather that the automobile industry has not been
ing o€spring, on average have to resemble their studied using the cladistic approach. The labels given
parents more than resemble other members of to the species shown in Figs. 2 and 3 do not conform
their species. This is found when new organis- to any codes of nomenclature for organisations,
ations are born within an industry. They are more because none exist. Constructing a classi®cation is a
similar to organisations within that industry, than taxonomic process and thus by the de®nition of taxon-
they are to organisations in other industries. This omy, groups (taxa ) are formed and are then allocated
5. I. McCarthy et al. / Omega 28 (2000) 77±95 81
Fig. 2. Five taxa cladogram.
Fig. 3. Automotive cladogram.
6. 82 I. McCarthy et al. / Omega 28 (2000) 77±95
Table 1
Automotive cladistic characters
1 Standardisation of parts
2 assembly time standards
3 assembly line layout
4 reduction of craft skills
5 automation (machine paced shops)
6 pull production system
7 reduction of lot size
8 pull procurement planning
9 operator based machine maintenance
10 quality circles
11 employee innovation prizes
12 job rotation
13 large volume production
14 suppliers selected primarily by price.
15 exchange of workers with suppliers
16 socialisation training (master/apprentice learning)
17 proactive training programs
18 product range reduction
19 automation
20 multiple subcontracting
21 quality systems (procedures, tools, ISO 9000)
22 quality philosophy (culture, way of working, TQM)
23 open book policy with suppliers; sharing of cost data and pro®ts
24 ¯exible, multifunctional workforce
25 set-up time reduction
26 Kaizen change management
27 TQM sourcing; suppliers selected on the basis of quality
28 100% inspection/sampling
29 U-shape layout
30 preventive maintenance
31 individual error correction; products are not rerouted to a special ®xing station
32 sequential dependency of workers
33 line balancing
34 team policy (team motivation, pay and autonomy)
35 Toyota veri®cation of assembly line (TVAL)
36 groups vs. teams
37 job enrichment
38 manufacturing cells
39 concurrent engineering
40 ABC costing
41 excess capacity
42 ¯exible automation for product versions
43 agile automation for di€erent products
44 insourcing
45 Immigrant workforce
46 dedicated automation
47 division of labour
48 employees are system tools and simply operate m/c's
49 employees are system developers; if motivated and managed they can solve problems and create value
50 product focus
51 parallel processing (in equipment)
52 dependence on written rules; unwillingness to challenge rules such as the economic order quantity
53 further intensi®cation of labour; employees are consider part of the machine and will be replaced by a machine if possible
a name (nomy = naming). Every e€ort has been made such as craft, mass, agile and lean have been used.
to assign labels which describe the de®ning character- Thus, the labels given to the species are simply for the
istics of the system and where possible existing terms purpose of di€erentiation and communication. The in-
7. I. McCarthy et al. / Omega 28 (2000) 77±95 83
formation content provided by the labels is considered 3. Code characters.
to be a level higher than simply referring to each 4. Establish character polarity.
species, as species 1, species 2, species 3, etc. 5. Construct conceptual cladogram.
The cladograms illustrated in Figs. 2 and 3 are both 6. Construct factual cladogram.
clades, as they contain a set of species including the 7. Taxa nomenclature.
most recent common ancestor of all the members con- In order to demonstrate how a cladogram is pro-
tained within that set. It is important to understand duced, the cladogram in Fig. 3 is referred to. The cla-
that Fig. 2 is a portion or segment of Fig. 3 and that dogram is a classi®cation of automotive assembly
both Figs. are clades, despite the fact that Fig. 2 is a plants. It was produced to the conceptual level and
subset of Fig. 3. This is due to research focus (establish was compiled using data from several studies of the
evolutionary boundaries) and the information pre- automotive industry. These studies include the evol-
sented. That is, Fig. 2 in its entirety and in isolation, is ution, population density and mortality in the automo-
by de®nition a clade, despite the fact that Fig. 2 can tive industry; [44±48]; historical accounts of the
be expanded to Fig. 3. If we assume that a manufac- industry, sometimes focusing on speci®c geographic
turing researcher is only interested in the clade shown
regions; [49,50], to speci®c studies which examined the
in Fig. 2 and that his speci®c interest is devising manu- change in manufacturing techniques used within the
facturing strategies for modern craft systems, neocraft industry [51±53]. Technical, business and ®nancial
systems and skilled large scale producers. Then this reports produced by the automobile industry were also
group of manufacturing species is known as the obtained. These documents detailed events and issues
ingroup (the study group or the group of interest). which were in¯uencing how the industry was evolving.
Observations and hypotheses are made about the The most signi®cant of these documents are listed as
ingroup by comparing it with the various outgroups references [54±78].
and most importantly with the sister group (the out-
group that is genealogically the most closely related
group to the ingroup). It should be noted that the 4.1. Select the manufacturing clade
ancestor of the ingroup is not the sister group, because
the ancestor by de®nition will always be a member of The starting point is to de®ne the clade to be stu-
the ingroup. died. Such a step requires a decision which in itself is a
The numbers shown on the branches of Figs. 2 and form of classi®cation, as the investigator must select a
3 denote the acquisition of characters. Character `1' group of manufacturing systems which satisfy certain
(standardisation of parts) has a speci®c location on the research objectives or interests. For example, a manu-
tree that indicates that ancient craft systems do not facturing clade could be di€erentiated on the basis of
possess character `1' and that standardised craft sys- the market industry into which it was born to survive,
tems, modern craft systems, neocraft systems and skilled e.g. the automotive industry, electronic component
large scale producers do possess character `1'. Thus, manufacturers, cutting tool manufacturers, etc.
ancient craft systems are the ancestor of a new gener- Classi®cations based on industry di€erentiation are
ation of manufacturing systems that are based on the widely used and accepted and are dicult to ignore. In
acquisition of character `1'. Similarly, modern craft sys- the United Kingdom, the basic framework for analys-
tems are a descendant of standardised craft systems as ing industrial activities is the standard industrial classi-
it later acquired character `2' (production time stan- ®cation (SIC) [79]. The SIC is described by Price and
dards) and character `47' (division of labour). The Mueller [80] as an empirical classi®cation which is not
characters `13', `48' and `50' resulted in the formation derived in any way from theoretical ideas on how ac-
of neocraft systems, whilst the characters `3', `16' and tivities should be grouped. However, it does group
`32' result in the emergence of skilled large scale produ- together organisational entities that are involved in
cers. resource exchange and transformation of a similar
nature. This description of organisational activity
equates to the de®nition of an organisational ecosys-
tem as proposed by Baum and Singh [81]. A clade by
4. Building a manufacturing cladogram de®nition can be equivalent to di€erent levels in the
hierarchy. This is illustrated by Fig. 4, which shows
The proposed framework for constructing a cladistic how the ecological and systematic hierarchies of organ-
classi®cation of manufacturing systems has been ident- isational evolution relate to each other (this ®gure has
i®ed and adapted from classic biological approaches to been adapted from [81] to include the clade level).
cladism [40±43]. The seven stages are listed below: For the purposes of this study, the automobile
1. Select the manufacturing clade. assembly industry (the clade) was selected, because it
2. Determine the characters. exists as a population of manufacturing organisations
8. 84 I. McCarthy et al. / Omega 28 (2000) 77±95
4.2. Determine the characters
Once the clade has been selected, a number of di€er-
ent types of manufacturing system would appear to be
a member of that clade (mass, lean, agile, craft, job,
etc.). The complete membership of this particular clade
is not yet known, because no formal or validated
clades for manufacturing systems exist. It is common
practice to work on existing clades within the biologi-
cal sciences, because the majority of the taxonomic
based research, is concerned with validating, enhancing
and expanding the knowledge contained within existing
cladograms. As this was a new study, a primary objec-
tive of the research was to examine the evolutionary
development of the entity and to identify the members
of the clade. This is a process of `mining for species'
and during this historical excavation, evidence is
sought which will suggest the possible existence of a
particular type of manufacturing system. This evidence
tends to be in the form of published material or
Fig. 4. Hierarchies of organisational evolution, adapted from archives, which detail the existence of the manufactur-
[81]. ing system, along with a description of its operations
and de®ning characteristics, the location where it
exists/existed and a date/period when it was ®rst dis-
(species) that make and sell a closely related set of well covered or developed.
de®ned products. It is an industry which is widely This mining process uncovers the characters which
known and studied and this provides bene®ts in terms will be used to build the cladogram. Whilst undertak-
of communicating, disseminating and validating the ing this exploration there are a number of steps which
research. It is also a relatively young industry which can be followed to help identify the ®nal set of charac-
has been extensively documented and this makes the ters which will be used to construct the cladogram.
investigation into phylogenetic relationships relatively The process of determining the characters for the auto-
easy, when compared to an industry such as the hand motive cladogram consisted of two steps: character
tool manufacturing industry, which can be traced back search and character selection. Character search is the
to prehistoric man. This is an important point, because task of building the initial set of characters, by simply
there were no existing cladistic classi®cations of organ- listing known attributes possessed by automotive
isations which could be used as a reference or starting assembly plants. Determining which characters from
point, so it was important to select a study group this initial set should be used to construct a classi®-
which would satisfy and assist the research objectives cation is the task of character selection.
in terms of information collection and results dissemi-
nation. Also, the decision to study the automobile 4.2.1. Character search
assembly industry would enable both the dissemination When searching for the manufacturing systems that
and exploitation of any bene®ts to be related to the constitute the clade and the characters that distinguish
standard industrial classi®cation (SIC). the species phylogenetically, it is helpful to know what
Identifying the ancestor of a clade is a process of to look for and what to avoid. Whereas, an attribute is
historical investigation where evidence is accumulated a descriptive property or feature, a taxonomic charac-
to determine the origins of a certain manufacturing ter is a feature which is used in a classi®cation. It is
type. For example, the origins of car manufacturing also important to di€erentiate between the character
stem back to Karl Benz and his three-wheel auto- (the actual feature) and the character states which are
mobile. In terms of manufacturing systems, this would a condition that this feature exhibits. For example, the
be regarded as a craft system which evolved into an character `plant layout' has numerous character states:
early factory system and then into a mass type organis- job shop, ¯ow line, functional layout, manufacturing
ation. The process of identifying an ancestor is initially cells, etc.
ambiguous and dicult, both for biologists and manu- The school of classi®cation used will contain theories
facturing researchers, but the process of constructing which determine what is an acceptable taxonomic char-
the cladogram con®rms or refutes this initial assump- acter. For instance, in cladistics, a taxonomic character
tion. has to point to a homology between two organisations,
9. I. McCarthy et al. / Omega 28 (2000) 77±95 85
whereas in phenetic classi®cations, a taxonomic charac- are found as they come to complement the information
ter contributes to the mathematical tightness of a clus- content of the classi®cation. This last point applies
ter. speci®cally to cladistics, because cladists tend to
To avoid searching for and selecting characters quickly eliminate characters which have no evolution-
which are inappropriate Sneath and Sokal [43] describe ary signi®cance in their data sets and therefore produce
certain kinds of characters which should be clearly dis- classi®cations objectively and eciently.
quali®ed from a taxonomic study. These are listed as In addition to searching for characters by studying
inadmissible characters and include: the entity, the use of reference characters was con-
. Meaningless characters. A character must re¯ect the sidered. That is, does an exhaustive list of manufactur-
internal nature of the entity, therefore, the name of ing or organisational characteristics exist and would
a manufacturing company would not be included as this list help the search and selection process. To build
a character to represent the activities of a manufac- such a list has been a common objective for many tax-
turing system. onomists, but there are several problems associated
. Logically correlated characters. Those characters with the management and use of such a list. The cost
which are a logical consequence of another, should of building an exhaustive list would be high and there
be excluded. For example, if we assume that cell- is no evidence that building such a list is feasible.
based team working, requires a cellular layout, then There are many issues to manage: duplication of data,
there is a logical correlation between these two char- partial redundancy between characters, correlation and
acters, i.e. if one character state exists, another will dependency patterns between characters. Even if such
automatically. a list was available, using it might not be cost-ecient,
. Partially logical correlation's. The degree of indepen- because the cost of selecting characters from all poss-
dence is the subject of this kind of character, as a ible characters could be prohibitive.
greater number of cases exist where the dependence The primary bene®t of a reference list of characters,
of one character upon another is only partial. For is that it provides a feel good factor and a con®dent
instance the size of a workforce will be to a degree, starting point for researchers producing a classi®-
relate to the number of machines that a manufactur- cation. However, total reliance on a so-called exhaus-
ing company has. After further investigation it could tive reference list, would be foolish and misguided,
be found that the degree of dependency is small, because all classi®cations are undertaken in situations
because other factors, such as the type of technology where the complete character set is not known. To
and the type of product also in¯uence this character. assist the search for automotive characters and to
Therefore, very few partially logical correlations are understand the signi®cance of the characters with
regarded as inadmissible. Hull [82] provides an regards to the entity and its evolution, several categor-
empirical correlation to estimate the degree of inde- isations of characters were identi®ed and referred to:
pendence between two characters. [4,36,83±85]. It is important that the categories do not
. Invariant characters. If a character which is normally dictate, but suggest, because the ultimate decision gov-
variable, is invariable for the sample of entities erning character selection within a cladistic study is the
under study, then it should be removed from the existence of a synapomorphy which results in an hom-
analysis. Such characters o€er no bene®ts in terms ology. Synapomorphies are characters which have a
of assessing similarity. An example is the absence or derived state and are shared by two or more taxa and
presence of manufacturing technology. When con- thus indicate common ancestry for the manufacturing
sidering all forms of organisation, this character systems within this group.
would vary from organisation to organisation. The distinction between homology and analogy is a
However, as the presence of manufacturing technol- fundamental concept of cladistics. A homology rep-
ogy is a conforming de®nition for a manufacturing resents `true similarity', whilst analogy is considered
system, this character would not change for a popu- super®cial similarity which generates noise or mislead-
lation containing only manufacturing systems. ing observations. An analogy is a structural grouping
The search for automotive assembly characters con- where a character is shared by a set of species and is
sisted of investigating the historical development of the derived from a common ancestor. Thus, choosing a
car making industry by analysing the work and data character which is an analogy should be avoided. The
of the studies cited in Section 3. The characters ident- relationship between analogy and homology is clearly
i®ed, although well known, were treated as arbitrary demonstrated in Fig. 5 [29]. It is important to note the
or capricious characters, as their identi®cation for cla- three groupings, as only monophyletic groups are
distic purposes must be con®rmed. Taxonomists dis- included in a cladistic classi®cation. The monophyletic
cover characters whilst studying the entity and groups are the groups which result in an unambiguous
constructing the classi®cation, thus many characters hierarchic arrangement, because the group contains a
10. 86 I. McCarthy et al. / Omega 28 (2000) 77±95
Fig. 5. Homologies and analogies.
common ancestor and all its descendants and there is age to the extent that it would not emerge in species
no con¯icting character data. which do not already exhibit character `14' (mass sub-
Consider Fig. 3, and the characters `8' (pull procure- contracting by price bidding).
ment planning) and `20' (multiple subcontracting).
Character `8' appears in the Toyota production system 4.2.2. Character selection
family, which includes: lean producers and agile produ- This is a screening process and in the case of cladis-
cers, whereas character `20' appears in the mass produ- tics, a character is validated if it is a synapomorphy.
cers family, which includes: pseudo lean producers, Thus, the selection phase in cladistics is equivalent to a
modern mass producers, European mass producers and test of homology. Two methods were used on the
intensive mass producers. If characters `8' and `20' are automotive study to screen characters: (1) direct test of
replaced with one character, say character `Z' (procure- homologies and (2) resolving character con¯icts. It
ment policy), the structure of the cladogram would should be noted that prior to building a cladogram the
change. This is because homologies have been created organisational systematist may only have a general
between taxa which are in fact evolutionarily remote. knowledge of the ancestral links between species.
Thus, character `Z' is an example of an analogous Therefore, it is not obvious that a character is an ana-
character because pull procurement is constrained by logous character at the beginning of the analysis, it is
character `6' (pull production) and would not naturally only con®rmed during the construction and analysis of
emerge in mass producers. Similarly, it is postulated the cladogram.
that character `20' is associated or dependent with The direct test method is based on the argument
some or maybe all of the characters on the same line- that homologies and analogies tend to exist on a conti-
11. I. McCarthy et al. / Omega 28 (2000) 77±95 87
nuum of resemblance, where the homologies are at the homologies after a preliminary cladogram has been
high extreme resemblance end, whilst the analogies constructed is that the validity of a character is ques-
tend to exhibit only moderate resemblance [43]. Thus, tioned only if it generates a con¯ict with the others
even if a complete and valid historical account (`fossil characters which are consistent and congruent with
record') for automotive manufacturing systems existed, each other. Most classi®cations will have a consistent
the investigator would still be dependent on resem- core, which can be identi®ed in cladistics by running a
blance based similarity. From a purist point of view, clique analysis [86]. Any character which does not
cladists argue that resemblance is not a de®nitive test belong to the clique set should go through a thorough
of homology, but there is a strong case to suggest that test of homology. It should be stressed that it is often
it is a good indicator, because there are external, com- at this stage that many characters are usually discov-
positional and structural measures which relate phenetic ered and re®ned, as the phylogeny of the clade is
similarity with homology. Thus, the direct test consists gradually revealed and understood by the taxonomist.
of the external method, compositional method and the
structural method.
4.3. Code characters
The external method can be applied without study-
ing or knowing the internal structure of the feature.
Once a set of characters has been identi®ed, along
Any external characteristic of the feature is used to
with the set of automobile assembly species which are
identify the existence of some fundamental diversity
a consequence of these characters, the relationship
within the feature. For example, the procurement sys-
between the characters and the species are examined in
tems that typically exist in lean manufacturing produ-
order to allow the construction of the cladogram. A
cers tend to have subcontractors/suppliers which are
cladogram can be constructed from the character data,
located within a short distance of the assembly plant.
because a cladistic character has three properties:
It was common for subcontractors/suppliers in
direction, order and polarity [87]. The coding of a
Western manufacturers to be located almost anywhere
character facilitates the processing of the character set.
on the planet. Thus, from an external perspective only,
Ordering is that property of a character which refers
there is a signi®cant di€erence and the location of sub-
to the possible character change sequences that can
contractors relative to the main assembly plant, could
occur. The character property, direction, refers to the
be a potential character, because no evidence of ana-
transition between the character states. When an inves-
logy has yet materialised. The compositional method
tigator determines the actual direction of transform-
requires the investigator to list the parts which consti-
ation the character is said have a `polarised' state.
tute the considered character. This internal breakdown
is then used in a comparison with other organisational
species. For example, a reduction in the number of tier 4.4. Establish character polarity
levels in a supply chain might be evident in service or-
ganisations and retail organisations and this circum- To assess character polarity, an outgroup comparison
stantial evidence could be used to guide the selection is undertaken. This is based on the recognition that
of characters for manufacturing systems. With the once the characteristics of the closest relative have
structural method, the focus is on how the di€erent el- been discovered, the information for determining
ements of the character interact with each other and if which characters are primitive and which are derived is
there is a case for splitting a potential character into revealed. Hence, this comparison is based on the rule
two or more characters. This decision is made purely that for a given character with two or more states
on the basis of how the elements exist and their depen- within a group, the state occurring in related groups is
dence with one another. assumed to be primitive [88]. Any character state
Identifying and resolving character con¯icts occurs found only in the ingroup is considered to be derived
continually during stages 2±6 of the cladogram frame- [30]. Decisions governing the character polarity found
work, but the ®nal validation is a postcladogram con- at the outgroup node can be either decisive, with the
struction exercise (stages 5 and 6). Once a preliminary node labelled as primitive (0) or derived (1), or equiv-
cladogram has been constructed, it usually exhibits cer- ocal, with the node labelled primitive/derived (0, 1).
tain character con¯icts. These con¯icts can be natural If this method is applied to the cladogram shown in
occurrences, such as parallelism or coevolution. They Fig. 3, the outcome would be inconclusive, because
can also result from analogous characters, or improper this tree has already been resolved and there are no
coding of characters. Improper coding can be the inconsistencies in the character data. Therefore, in
result of analogous or imprecise de®nition of charac- order to demonstrate this method, a cladogram con-
ters states, or using the wrong polarity (i.e. confusing sisting of taxa and characters from the automobile
the derived and the primitive state), or using characters study is used, but the data and structure of the tree
which are too general. The advantage of validating have not been resolved. This unresolved data (Table 2)
12. 88 I. McCarthy et al. / Omega 28 (2000) 77±95
Table 2
Data matrix for Figs. 6±9
Character 1 Character 2 Character 3 Character 4
Ancient craft (AC) 1 1 0 0
Standardised craft (SC) 0 1 1 0/1
Modern craft (MC) 0 0 1 0
Neo craft (NC) 1 1 1 1
Skilled large scale (SLS) 1 1 1 1
Large scale (LS) 0 0 0 0
Mass (M) 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/1
is used to demonstrate the process of determining char-
acter polarity (Figs. 6±10).
Fig. 6 is a possible cladogram structure for the data
contained in Table 2. The nodes are labelled 1±6,
whilst the species are labelled using letters (AC, SC,
MC, NC, SLS, LS and M). Beginning with the charac-
ter 1 from Table 2, each branch end of the cladogram
is labelled with the corresponding character state (Fig.
7). Next, starting from the furthest branches (branches
AC and SC) a polarity decision for node 2 is made.
The nodes of the cladogram are labelled `0' if the
lower node and adjacent branch are both `0', or `0' Fig. 7. First polarity decision using character data 1.
and `0, 1'. The nodes will be labelled `1' if the lower
node and adjacent branch are both `1' or `1' and `0,1'.
If the branches/nodes have di€erent labels, one `0' and using the same process, but by beginning at the lowest
the other `1', then the node is labelled `0, 1'. The root node on the branching structure (node 4). Thus, node
node (node 1) is not considered, because in order to 4 is labelled `1', because NC is `1' and SLS is `1' (Fig.
analyse this branch another outgroup is needed. Thus, 8). Continuing towards the ingroup (M) the remaining
node 2 is labelled `0, 1', because the ®rst branch (AC) nodes (nodes 3 and 5) are labelled, until only the out-
is `1' and the second branch (SC) is `0'. group node (node 6) remains. Node 5 is labelled `0/1'
The next stage is to identify what is termed the near- because LS is `0' and node 4 is `1' and node 3 is
est branching structure, which occurs at node 6 (Fig. labelled `0', because MC is `0' and node 2 is `0/1' (Fig.
7). The nodes of the branching structure are labelled 9). The analysis for character 1 is complete when node
6 is labelled. Node 6 is found to be decisive (`0'),
Fig. 6. Determining the character polarity for mass producers
and its corresponding outgroups. Fig. 8. Second polarity decision using character data 1.
13. I. McCarthy et al. / Omega 28 (2000) 77±95 89
state will be decisive for the outgroup node. If the last
outgroup has a di€erent character state, then the char-
acter state decision will be equivocal.
4.5. Construct conceptual cladogram
Various tools exist to construct cladograms which
provide a `best estimate' of the evolutionary relation-
ships contained within the data matrix. These tools
have one of two approaches:
1. Construct the best cladogram using a speci®c algor-
ithm.
2. Apply a criterion for choosing between alternative
Fig. 9. Third and fourth polarity decision using character
cladograms.
data 1.
The ®rst approach is faster, but does not rank the
trees which are considered suboptimal. The second
because node 3 is `0' and node 5 is `0/1' (Fig. 10). approach provides ranking for all the trees under com-
Thus, by using the outgroup comparison a best esti- parison, but it is not able to generate exact results for
mate of the polarity was made and `0' was found to be matrices with more than 12 taxa, owing to compu-
primitive and `1' is derived for character 1. tational diculties [12].
This process of assessing character polarity is made From these two approaches four methods for estimat-
for each character. It should be noted that although ing phylogeny have developed: (1) methods based on
this procedure plays a signi®cant role in identifying pairwise data, (2) parsimony methods, (3) Lake's
character polarity and resolving any con¯icts that may method of invariants and (4) maximum likelihood phy-
exist in the cladogram, the ®nal validation of character logenies. The parsimony method selects the shortest
states is subject to the rule of parsimony (Section 4.5). tree, i.e. the tree requiring the least evolutionary charac-
In summary, two rules of analysis are used to con- ter changes. This method is the most popular because it
duct an outgroup comparison: the doublet rule and the has a simple rule of application which is; the longer the
alternating sister group rule [88]. With the doublet tree length, the worse the ®t; the shorter the tree length
rule, if the sister group and the ®rst two consecutive the better the ®t. The other methods vary between parsi-
outgroups have the same character state, then that monious and phenetic, but were developed to compare
character state is decisive for the outgroup node. Any nucleotide specimens, DNA and molecular sequences.
two consecutive outgroups with the same character Thus, a parsimonious approach is adopted as it aims to
state are called a doublet. With the alternating sister select a best tree on an evolutionary basis rather than a
group rule, if the character states are alternating down phenetic basis. Also, the method is based on the tree
the cladogram, and if the last outgroup has the same structure rather than elements of the entity (DNA,
character state as the sister group, then the character nucleotides, molecular distances, etc.) and thus there
would appear to be no limitations when applying it to a
manufacturing cladogram. For a detailed account of
parsimony methods, see [89].
The testing of a cladogram is essentially based on its
ability to explain the phylogeny of the clade. With this
aim there are two sets of problems:
1. The proposed relationships are not acceptable or
not historically coherent.
2. Several con¯icting cladograms of the same length
are obtained.
Refusing a cladogram because it does not ®t with
historical evidence is a dangerous exercise as there are
no general rules linking the number of characters
acquired by a species and its period of existence. Very
evolved species might become un®t in a later period.
Fig. 10. Polarity decision for node 6 (outgroup node) using Once a cladogram has been produced, the ®rst step
character data 1. is to map the character changes onto the tree in order
14. 90 I. McCarthy et al. / Omega 28 (2000) 77±95
to have a global view of the proposed phylogeny. It is cess results in the organisation acquiring and reversing
common practice to shape test the cladogram by add- the necessary character states which will lead to the
ing additional species and characters. It is important new organisational form. This reversal is similar to
to note that adding characters and species at this stage Sagasti's model of adaptive behaviour [91], which
of the framework is easier and more reliable than at occurs due to selective pressures. Reactive reversals are
the clade building stage. not part of the phylogeny of a clade, they are a
When examining the top section of the cladogram, measure of a systems' lack of strategic focus.
the investigator should question if the acquisition Biological organisms tend to evolve according to the
could have led to a speciation, or if it is just a case of rule of parsimony (smallest number of evolutionary
anagenesis. If a character could have potentially cre- changes), but organisations which to some extent in¯u-
ated a viable species, and if historical evidence of the ence evolutionary destiny, do not always take the most
existence of this species can be gathered, then the parsimonious route.
species should be added.
The automotive cladogram was constructed using 4.7. Taxa nomenclature
MacClade Version 3 [90]. MacClade provides an inter-
action environment for exploring phylogeny and resol- The name given to a taxa of manufacturing systems
ving character con¯icts. MacClade allows the user to is more than a word which simply acts as a means of
manipulate cladogram structures and character data reference. The name given to a taxa must act as a ve-
and to visualise the characters on each branch. Finally, hicle for communication, be unambiguous and univer-
MacClade provides tools for moving branches, rerout- sal. It should also indicate its position within the
ing clades and automatically searching for the most classi®cation hierarchy. Je€rey [40] describes the codes
parsimonious tree. of nomenclature used for plants (International Code of
Botanical Nomenclature), for bacteria (International
4.6. Construct factual cladogram Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria) and for animals
(International Code of Zoological Nomenclature).
This stage involves studying real and existing manu- Each code di€ers in detail but certain basic features
facturing organisations in order to observe the manu- are common. For a summary of the relevant codes,
facturing systems which they operate. This typically discussed in an organisational context, the reader is
consists of plant inspections, discussions with employ- referred to [92].
ees, assessment of planning and control procedures
and assessment of documentation (annual reports,
business plans and surveys, etc.). The study aims to 5. Applications
validate the existence of the characters identi®ed
during the previous stages. It will test the validity of This article began by discussing the reasons for
any proposed tree structure by ensuring that the char- undertaking a classi®cation study using cladistics.
acter data matrix is complete (i.e. no important histori- Although many of the reasons presented might appear
cal events which relate to characters have been to be common sense, this does not dilute their import-
omitted) and that the assigned polarity is correct. This ance and contribution to any serious and scienti®c in-
stage is to an extent, validation by dissemination, vestigation into organisations. The following
because the factual data will be used to verify the con- discussion presents possible academic and practical ap-
ceptual data. The validity of any proposed tree struc- plications of cladistics.
ture will also be tested by allocating existing
organisations a position on the cladogram. 5.1. Understanding organisational diversity
The factual stage is undertaken because character (organisational systematics)
reversal (the dropping of a character) is a possible pro-
cess with manufacturing systems. This paper suggests There is common agreement on the de®nition of the
that two forms of character reversal could occur within attributes of a just-in-time manufacturing system, see
organisations: phylogenetic reversal and reactive rever- for instance [93, 94], but these de®nitions are su-
sal. Phylogenetic reversal is illustrated in Fig. 2(a) by ciently vague to cause confusion with the terms ¯exible
character `(20±)' where by the character has been manufacturing systems, agile manufacturing systems,
reversed naturally by the circumstances of evolution world class manufacturing systems and lean manufac-
and thus is illustrated on the cladogram. Reactive turing systems. This problem has been identi®ed by
character reversal occurs, because organisations realise many researchers and is summarised by the following
that their current position is at the end of an inap- quote: ``( F F F) the diversity involved in the manufactur-
propriate evolutionary path and take the decision to ing industry is such that it is unlikely that all industry
acquire a new organisational form. This change pro- types should be aiming for the same procedures, pol-
15. I. McCarthy et al. / Omega 28 (2000) 77±95 91
icies and culture. Yet there has been very little research turing terms, examples of stress are unreliable sourcing
which tries to identify what the term world class (WC) mechanisms, lack of skilled labour, lack of ®nance,
means for certain industry types. This leaves the cur- machine breakdowns, etc. Disturbance is a serious en-
rent apparently poor performers with inadequate infor- vironmental event which happens occasionally.
mation to decide whether they are really not of WC Examples of disturbances in biology are ®re, frost,
standard, and, if not, insucient appropriate guidance earthquakes, etc. In manufacturing, disturbances are
to determine how to achieve the WC goals to which strikes, ®re, the loss of a market. If several organis-
most would agree to aspire''. [95, p. 43]. ations exist in a perfect environment with no stress
Despite the need for knowledge on the evolution of and no disturbance, they tend to be competitors (C).
new organisational forms, as described in Section 1 of Competitors are merciless and compete to be the tal-
this paper, no theoretical consensus exists for organis- lest, biggest, etc. If stress appears in the environment,
ing and supporting the vast number of empirical stu- stress tolerators (S) tend to take the lead over competi-
dies which examine industrial and organisational tors, whose strategy for survival is not appropriate. If
diversity. Using a systematic and comparative method disturbance is high, ruderals (R) are better adapted
such as cladistics, permits an assessment of the general- and dominate the environment. Competition is the
ity of the attributes of complex systems [96]. Cladistic dominate functional type studied and documented in
classi®cations and the desire to develop a theory of or- business studies and in manufacturing management,
ganisational di€erences could play a signi®cant role in but it would be interesting and possibly bene®cial to
explaining the processes by which the practices and develop policies for creating manufacturing systems
structures of organisations and organisational forms which are tolerators or ruderals.
persist and exist over time.
5.2. Understanding organisational ecology 5.3. Understanding and achieving organisational change
Where as the ®rst application was concerned with
creating a systematic system of organisational diver- ( F F F ) an attempt was made to identify a general im-
sity, this discussion suggests that cladistic classi®- plementation sequence. However, similar to the ob-
cations could provide the comparative index which servation made by Im and Lee [99], a general
might assist the creation of theories which focus on or- implementation pattern for the JIT practices could
ganisational processes (e.g. replication, mutation, not be established [94, p. 8].
recombination, learning, entrepreneurship, competition
and natural selection) and organisational events (e.g.
birth, death, transformation, speciation and extinc- The ®rst two applications were academic in nature,
tion). Cladistics could be coupled with functional stu- but the deliverables from such applications could pro-
dies which seek to ascertain an overall measure for vide organisations with new tools and knowledge
complexity, stress resistance, mortality index etc. in an which could help them to be proactive in the manipu-
ecosystem. A functional study of organisations would lation of their evolution. Since cladistics is a classi®-
aim to forecast environmental/market changes (the cation method which ties its de®nition of similarity to
rate of new product introduction, service mechanisms, naturally occurring change processes, the result is that
supply relationships, etc.) and forecasts on which man- the information contained within a cladogram is useful
ufacturing species will dominate, compete and survive for identifying standard change sequences. A clado-
such market and economic conditions. Functional stu- gram could also provide a framework or index for
dies and cladistics are viewed as complementary disci- positioning and benchmarking studies [100].
plines by many biologists and philosophers [97], since The analysis of a cladogram goes further than a
their results describe di€erent properties of species (re- simple speci®cation of a change sequence. It indicates:
spectively, their identity and their strategy for survi- the sequence of steps required to transform an organis-
val). The goal of functionalists is to develop a ation to a certain state, along with the characteristics
catalogue of knowledge, related to a classi®cation, for which must be dropped (the `unlearning' steps). If
identifying strategies for survival. An example of such there is agreement that the cladogram has been con-
a classi®cation is the CSR model of Philip Grime from structed according to the rules of parsimony, the physi-
the NERC unit of the University of Sheeld [98]. The cal and ®nancial cost of the identi®ed change route
CSR model, models the environment along two dimen- would be minimised.
sions: stress and disturbance. Stress is a limitation put The tree-like nature of a cladogram could be com-
on the resources necessary for the organisations to sur- pared to a map, which once constructed provides or-
vive. In biological terms, stress is the lack of nutrients, ganisations with an unambiguous and precise
the lack of light, cold temperatures, etc. In manufac- de®nition of the starting point of the change journey.
16. 92 I. McCarthy et al. / Omega 28 (2000) 77±95
If the journey is a mimetic process then it will also Cladistics, as with all classi®cations, is a method for
provide a de®nition of the destination. systematically organising knowledge about a popu-
lation of entities. It is a process for studying diversity
5.4. Strategy and attempting to identify and understand laws and re-
lationships which explain the evolution and existence
Despite the popularity of ¯exible manufacturing of the variety groups. Its intellectual and practical
systems, managers su€er from inadequate frame- value is derived from this ability to explain.
works to help incorporate ¯exibility into their stra- This article suggests that cladistics is a novel and
tegic planning [101, p. 7]. appropriate approach for producing an organisational
classi®cation, because unlike the best phenetic classi®-
A cladogram provides a snapshot of the evolution- cations and the multitude of subjective classi®cations,
ary history of a company. Thus, it can be used by cladistics has an underlying philosophy (evolution) and
managers to check that their vision for the future is accompanying rules and procedures. Cladistics uses
consistent with their understanding of the past. evolutionary relationships to identify and form groups,
Cladistics also provides an interesting measure of stra- because evolution is the process which accompanies
tegic excellence, through the principle of parsimony. the changes which materialise to produce di€erent or-
Strategic management is a discipline which was under ganisational forms. The resulting classi®cation and the
close scrutiny in the eighties and many researchers knowledge contained within, provide insights into or-
questioned if a correlation could be found between the ganisational diversity. These insights include: observing
practice of strategic management and organisational the patterns and events which accompany the organis-
performance, usually de®ned as pro®tability. Although ational change and observing the most parsimonious
some researchers con®rmed the existence of such a cor- route between di€erent organisational forms.
relation [102±104], many others found no correlations This fundamental, but important insight could result
whatsoever, [105±109]. Strategic management is con- in organisational cladograms being used as a tool
cerned with the long term sustainability of pro®ts and within a change framework, for achieving successful
thus strategic excellence can be dicult to de®ne, organisational design and change. Thus, regardless of
because assessments may need to view a decade of the industrial sector, organisations could use clado-
®nancial loss before capturing the bene®ts of a well- grams as an evolutionary analysis technique for deter-
articulated strategy. mining `where they have been and where they are
If there is agreement with the statements that ``( F F F ) now''. This evolutionary analysis could be used to for-
successful ®rms have followed more than one route to mulate coherent and appropriate action for managers
successful redesign.'', ``Too often, (F F F), pieces are who are organisational architects and planners.
missing from the strategies and structures ®rms create
in the process of redesign'' [110, p. 129], then the prin-
ciple of parsimony could o€er a legitimate de®nition of
strategic excellence. Researchers can easily question, a References
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