协同共生论:数字时代的新管理范式

The Synergetic & Symbiosis Theory: A New Management Paradigm in the Digital Age

数字时代管理实践中的无限链接、动态协同、范围经济、不确定性等特征向现有管理理论提出了巨大挑战,实践界需要新的"范式革命"来帮助组织有效地应对数字化。为了解读数字时代组织面临的新困惑,帮助企业应对数字时代的新挑战,本文提出了协同共生论。协同共生是指组织共生单元通过主动寻求协同增效,实现边界内组织成长、跨边界组织成长和系统自进化,进而达到整体价值最优的动态过程。协同共生的本质是从无序到有序,协同共生论就是用于引导共生单元实现整体价值最优的理论和方法体系,即通过协同共生效应、架构、管理模型及价值重构关键要素的管理理论和方法,帮助企业实现边界内组织成长、跨边界组织成长、系统自进化,进而达到整体价值最优。本文提出组织内共生、组织外共生及组织内外共生等三种共生态结构,并探讨了实现三种结构的机理、要素、模型与情境条件。"协同共生论"作为协同逻辑、共生状态的有机融合,为探索数字时代的组织和管理理论提供了新的可能。

The digital technology has triggered explosive growth, making countless enterprises start the digital survival transformation. How to promote enterprises to continuously adapt to the digital age and explore new evolutionary paths and new sources of efficiency has become an era question that must be answered by management discipline with strong practical attributes. In the digital age, the phenomenon of cross-border survival of enterprises is frequent, and the boundaries of original industries are blurred or even merged with each other. Thus, Alvarez et al.(2020) calls for the construction of a theory of enterprises that belongs to the 21 st century. We need to make a deep discussion on organizational boundaries, ecosystems, stakeholders, etc., as well as new ways of organizational value creation, social dimension attributes, and artificial intelligence applications.We find that the four realistic characteristics of management practice, unlimited links, collaboration and dynamics, the leading of scope economy, and uncertainty as normal, have posed huge challenges to existing management theories. The practice world needs a new “paradigm revolution” to help organizations effectively deal with digital challenges and uncertainty. We attempt to propose the theory of synergistic & symbiosis, when we come to the new confusion and when we try to interpret and explore how enterprises would overcome the new challenges of the digital age. On the basis of a thorough review of existing theories and research, we conduct in-depth case studies and related interviews, and propose the synergetic & symbiosis theory, researching on “how to realize the value of synergy”. The essence of synergetic & symbiosis is from disorder to order. Synergetic & symbiosis refers to the dynamic process of the symbiotic unit to achieve intra-boundary organization growth, crossboundary organization growth, and system self-evolution through the continuous initiative of seeking synergistic efficiency, and then to achieve the optimal overall value. The synergetic & symbiosis theory refers to the theory and methodology used to guide the symbiosis unit to achieve the optimal overall value of the synergetic & symbiosis state. Specifically, through the management theories and methods of synergetic & symbiosis effect, synergetic & symbiosis framework, synergetic & symbiosis management model and key elements of value reconstruction, it helps enterprises obtain synergy and achieve organizational growth within the boundary, cross-border organizational growth and system selfevolution. This paper proposes three types of symbiosis, that is, symbiosis within the organization,symbiosis outside the organization, and symbiosis inside and outside the organization. The three types help organizations explore the release of new value space in the digital age, and we investigate the mechanisms, elements, models, and contextual conditions for the realization of the three symbiosis structures. As the organic integration of synergetic logic and symbiotic state, the synergetic & symbiosis theory may become a new possibility of new organization and management theory.