Organization as Superorganism

This idea is re-introduced for the insect world in this interesting Wired blog.

In this artice, the authors point out that this thinking had fallen from grace for a period of time and we are now starting to see its resurgence. Talking about insect populations, Bert Holldobler, says "I work on communication mechanisms, what regulates division of labor among reproductive individuals -- and you cannot help but come back and see these highly evolved societies, like leafcutter ants, as an organism."

Before we fall in love with the notion of regarding the organisation as a superorganism we need to be careful of how we translate the metaphor into the human world. In looking at the application of complexity science (which has originated in the physical and natural sciences), Ralph Stacey issues a word of caution about simply using the language of one discipline in another discipline.

From our perspective, we would look firstly at the boundary of the organisation, then at the flow of information and material through the organisation.

Soul searching

In 1925 the South African author and naturalist Eugene Marais wrote a series of articles setting out his observation that a white ant termitary was a single living creature. In "The Soul of the White Ant" Marais creates a very powerful analogy. Many years before his time he had identified principles that would eventually be discovered by the scientific world; from pheremones to species adaptation.


He makes a very cogent argument. The queen can be likened to the 'brain', the individual termintes form specialised "organs" and the mud of the termitary itself forms the "skin" of the creature. He describes the complex defense mechanisms and the siren call of the termitary itself.


This started a thought process which I would like to persue in some of these articles. Are biological analogies in human organisations simply useful points of departure or something more fundamental? Pushing Marais' line of thinking, I would describe "organisational culture" as the skin - with very different properties, "purpose or vision" as the call of the termitary (pheremones), and each member of the organisation as a single "termite", grouping into specialised "organs" to see to the needs of the "organisation".


If this analogy holds and we can start to identify organisations as "composite living creatures" what then of genes, genetics, evolution and even sex?