Autopoiesis and strategic management in emerging economies

Summary form only given. For businesses in developing countries, the 1990s is a period of incipient changes. The main change has come about when economies like that of India were thrown open to global competition under the process of liberalization or globalization. Strategic rethinking to respond to the market imperatives has assumed urgent priority. The conventional strategic management methodology, based on a 'vision-based' model, is being replaced by autopoietic models, where causality no longer holds good. This is a process that undergoes changes due to fluctuations almost in a random fashion, but order gets developed through self-organization. Business organizations exhibit characteristics of autonomy. One feature of autonomy in institutions/firms is, when impacted by the environment, they respond in such a way as to preserve their own identity. An important attribute of autopoietic models is that they are complex, nonlinear and hence their future evolution is unpredictable. Strategic thinking and management has to deal with these new models for effective outcomes. Business systems, under conditions of fluctuations due to variations in the business environment, assume a different order depending on the environment. By tracking these fluctuations, learning and self-learning has to take place in the firm to initiate innovations in response to these fluctuations. The paper elaborates on this type of model and recommends steps to base management strategy for effective implementation.