Preview

The Origin of Strategy

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2424 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Origin of Strategy
What business owes Darwin and other reflections on competitive dynamics

The Origin of Strategy1

1 -By: Bruce D. Henderson: HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW November-December 1989
Bruce D. Henderson is professor of management at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. He is also the founder and chairman emeritus of the Boston Consulting Group and has written extensively on business strategy. His most recent book is The Logic of Business Strategy (Ballinger, 1985).

What business owes Darwin and other reflections on competitive dynamics

The Origin of Strategy
Consider this lesson in strategy. In 1934, Professor G.F Gause of Moscow University, known as
“the father of mathematical biology,” published the results of a set of experiments in which he put two very small animals (protozoans) of the same genus in a bottle with an adequate supply of food.
If the animals were of different species, they could survive and persist together. If they were of the same species, they could not. This observation led to Gause’s Principle of Competitive Exclusion:
No two species can coexist that makes their living in the identical way.
Competition existed long before strategy. It began with life itself. The first one-cell organisms required certain resources to maintain life. When these resources were adequate, the number grew from one generation to the next. As life evolved, these organisms became a resource for more complex forms of life, and so on up the food chain. When any pair of species competed for some essential resource, sooner or later one displaced the other. In the absence of counterbalancing forces that could maintain a stable equilibrium by giving each species an advantage in its own territory, only one of any pair survived.
Over millions of years, a complex network of competitive interaction developed. Today more than a million distinct existing species have been cataloged, each with some unique advantage in competing for the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Biological organization is embedded with emergent properties. These properties are based on a hierarchy of structural levels, each level building on levels below. Atoms make up the lowest level ordered into complex biological molecules. At the highest level of organization, the biosphere makes up all the environments on Earth. Descending down the ecosystem includes both living and nonliving organisms and consists of particular physical components that allow each to interact with one another. All these organisms are designed to accomplish the common purpose of processing nutrients, discarding wastes, responding to environmental stimuli, and reproducing within the particular environment. For example, organisms are inhabited in a community. The costal community is comprised of pelicans that eat the fish in the ocean. In addition, a diverse range of organisms survive together in this similar ecosystem. The hierarchy of biological organization builds from biological molecules, which are organized into complex structures referred to organelles, which are also one of the properties of cells. Within this complex system, life can be understood as many descending levels. From molecules, organelles are formed, organelles create cells, cells make up tissue, tissues are part of systems and organs and from organs organisms are formed. This hierarchy of biological organization makes up our ecosystem and describes the web of complex interactions. This diversity of life is found in this biological organization is much more than the sum of their parts (Campbell et al., 2006, p. 3).…

    • 625 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Chapter 54

    • 950 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Mutualism- (+/+ interaction), is an interspecific interaction that benefits both species example a bee pollinated a flower (bee can make honey, flower can reproduce)…

    • 950 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Simbio Nichewars

    • 792 Words
    • 4 Pages

    This report discusses an experiment to study the relationship between the ecological niche and competition. The hypothesis formulated states that if competition traits are identical and resources are abundant than multiple species will be able to coexist, and if one species has an advantage over the others than this species will be more likely to out compete another species for resources. The objective of this experiment is to use a simulation model of a rabbit pen containing four different “species” of rabbits. The model establishes rules for each species that are based on a number of important characteristics reflecting their ecological niches and their competitive abilities. These characteristics include how far rabbits can see (to find food), how fast they can hop (to acquire food), how much energy they use each day just to stay alive, how much energy they must accumulate before reproducing, and how much energy they absorb from each type of food they eat. This simulation model is “parameterized” by assigning values to the variables for the rules. This experiment relates very closely to the competitive exclusion principle sometimes referred to as Gause's Law of competitive exclusion or just Gause's Law, which states that two species that compete for the exact same resources cannot stably coexist. One of the two competitors will always have an ever so slight advantage over the other that leads to extinction of the second competitor in the long run.…

    • 792 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Competition within the food web describes the parameters needed for each element to exist and coexist within a given environment. These parameters consist of elements such as Ph balance, temperature (or climate), food availability, and so forth. For each animal or plant represented, these parameters provide a niche for survival in the ecological system of nature. These niches prove to be superior to some species and inferior to others. Competition graphs utilize each element within the food web exhibiting how species feed and prey upon others. The graphs capabilities include how more than any single species may prey or be prey to more than any single species and still coexist. These directed, simple graphs prove sufficient when studying limited numbers of elements. The Euclidean space provides an n dimensional view of the components needed to support the life of the species.…

    • 286 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Unit 8.3.1 Study Guide

    • 4808 Words
    • 20 Pages

    * Outline the historical development of the cell theory, in particular, the contributions of Robert Hooke and Robert Brown…

    • 4808 Words
    • 20 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Algae Lab

    • 686 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Competitive Exclusion Principle suggests that two different species cannot compete for the same limiting resource, in the same environment, for a long time (Molumby 150). This raises the question whether each species benefits, suffers, or remains unaffected. The possible interactions between different organisms are known as interspecific interactions. These include Neutralism, Commensalism, Amensalism, Mutualism, and Competition.…

    • 686 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Postlethwait, John H. and Hopson, Janet L., The Nature of Life, 3rd Edition, p. 481.…

    • 1544 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Ap Bio Ecology Lab

    • 2899 Words
    • 12 Pages

    ➢ Competing – Two species compete with another species for resources such as food, water, or territory…

    • 2899 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Charles Darwin's Dilemmas

    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Any change that is acquired is passed to the next generation. Charles Darwin was influence…

    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Secondly they are capable of breeding to produce living, fertile offspring. They are therefore able to successfully produce more offspring. This means that, when a species reproduces sexually any of the genes of its individuals can be combined with any other as they belong to the same gene pool.…

    • 690 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    PPG first became aware of strategy’s wickedness in the late 1980s. Two missteps taught the company that diversification, be it into other industries or countries, is fraught with peril:…

    • 353 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    What Is Synapomorphy?

    • 1542 Words
    • 7 Pages

    * Ecological opportunities- Meaning the availability of new or novel types of resources- have driven a wide array of adaptive radiation.…

    • 1542 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    biol110

    • 5155 Words
    • 21 Pages

    biology, building on earlier concepts. Topics include mechanisms of evolution, ecology, a survey of biodiversity and…

    • 5155 Words
    • 21 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Bio100 Lab Essay Example

    • 576 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Both species were able to adapt to the food sources available and maintain their population.…

    • 576 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    7. Porter, M. E. (1979). How competitive forces shape strategy (pp. 21-38). Boston: Harvard Business Review.…

    • 2515 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays