Biyomimetik Yaklaşımla Örgütsel Bağışıklığın Yeniden Kavramsallaştırılması: Çok Düzeyli Bir Model Önerisi

Öz

Amaç: Bu çok düzeyli model önerisinin amacı, örgütsel bağışıklık kavramını dayanıklılık, uyum ve kriz yönetimi tartışmalarının ötesinde yeniden ele almaktır. Mevcut yaklaşımlar örgütlerin krizler karşısında nasıl ayakta kaldığını açıklamak için önemli bir zemin sunsa da örgütün içeriden nasıl zayıfladığını, neyi nasıl hatırladığını ve bozulan düzeni hangi öğrenme biçimleriyle yeniden kurduğunu her zaman yeterince görünür kılmamaktadır. Bu çalışma, söz konusu boşluktan hareketle biyomimetik yaklaşımı örgütsel bağışıklığı yeniden kavramsallaştırmak için yeni bir kuramsal okuma alanı olarak önermektedir. Yöntem: Çalışma, kavramsal ve kuramsal model geliştirme yaklaşımıyla tasarlanmıştır. Makalenin omurgası iki kavramsal model ve bir bütünleştirici tablo üzerine kurulmuştur. İlk model, örgütsel bağışıklığın tanıma, kontrol, eylem, düzenleme, hafıza ve çok düzeyli öğrenme süreçleri üzerinden nasıl işlediğini göstermektedir. İkinci model, biyomimetik yaklaşımın doğayı gözlemleme, fonksiyonu analiz etme, ilkeyi soyutlama ve örgütsel uygulamaya aktarma döngüsü aracılığıyla örgütsel bağışıklığa nasıl taşınabileceğini açıklamaktadır. Bütünleştirici tablo ise biyomimetik ilkeler ile örgütsel bağışıklığın liderlik/yapı, adaptasyon, entegrasyon ve entelektüel sermaye bileşenleri arasındaki ilişkiyi kuramsal olarak görünür kılmaktadır. Bulgular: Model, örgütsel bağışıklığın yalnızca kriz anında devreye giren koruyucu bir tepki olarak ele alınamayacağını göstermektedir. Örgütsel bağışıklık; iç kırılganlıkları fark eden, bilgiyi dolaşıma sokan, deneyimi örgüt hafızasına yerleştiren ve kendini yeniden düzenleyebilen çok düzeyli bir yenilenme kapasitesi olarak kavramsallaştırılmalıdır. Bu çerçevede biyomimetik yaklaşım, örgütün doğadan öğrenme yoluyla savunma, öğrenme, adaptasyon, entegrasyon ve yenilenme süreçlerini birlikte düşünmesine imkân veren kuramsal bir zemin sunmaktadır. Özgün Katkı: Bu çalışma, örgütsel bağışıklığı yalnızca dayanıklılık veya kriz yönetimi yazınının bir uzantısı olarak değil, biyomimetik temelli çok düzeyli bir yönetim modeli olarak yeniden konumlandırmaktadır. Derlemenin özgün katkısı, örgütsel bağışıklığı savunma, öğrenme ve yenilenme ekseninde birlikte tartışması; bunu iki kavramsal model ve bir bütünleştirici tablo aracılığıyla kuramsal olarak yapılandırmasıdır. Böylece çalışma, yönetim ve organizasyon yazınına örgütsel bağışıklığın doğadan öğrenen, kendini düzenleyen ve yenilenme kapasitesi üreten dinamik bir yapı olarak anlaşılmasına yönelik yeni bir kavramsal çerçeve sunmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Biyomimetik yönetim
• Örgütsel Bağışıklık
• Örgütsel Yenilenme
• Örgüt Hafızası
• Çok Düzeyli Model

Reconceptualizing Organizational Immunity Through a Biomimetic Approach: A Multilevel Model Proposal

Öz

Purpose: The purpose of this multilevel model proposal is to reconsider the concept of organizational immunity beyond discussions of resilience, adaptation, and crisis management. Although existing approaches provide an important basis for explaining how organizations survive crises, they do not always make sufficiently visible how organizations weaken from within, what they remember, and through which forms of learning they rebuild a disrupted order. Drawing on this gap, the study proposes the biomimetic approach as a new theoretical lens for reconceptualizing organizational immunity. Method: The study is designed as a conceptual and theoretical model development paper. The article is built around two conceptual models and one integrative table. The first model shows how organizational immunity operates through recognition, control, action, regulation, memory, and multilevel learning processes. The second model explains how the biomimetic approach can be transferred to organizational immunity through a cycle of observing nature, analyzing function, abstracting principles, and translating them into organizational practice. The integrative table makes theoretically visible the relationship between biomimetic principles and the leadership/structure, adaptation, integration, and intellectual capital components of organizational immunity. Findings: The model shows that organizational immunity cannot be treated merely as a protective response activated in times of crisis. Organizational immunity should be conceptualized as a multilevel capacity for renewal that detects internal vulnerabilities, circulates knowledge, embeds experience in organizational memory, and re-regulates itself. Within this framework, the biomimetic approach provides a theoretical basis that enables organizations to consider defense, learning, adaptation, integration, and renewal processes together by learning from nature. Originality: This study repositions organizational immunity not merely as an extension of the resilience or crisis management literature, but as a biomimetic-based multilevel management model. The original contribution of the model lies in discussing organizational immunity through the combined lenses of defense, learning, and renewal, and in theoretically structuring this discussion through two conceptual models and one integrative table. In doing so, the study offers a new conceptual framework for understanding organizational immunity in the management and organization literature as a dynamic structure that learns from nature, self-regulates, and generates renewal capacity.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Biomimetic management
• Organizational Immunity
• Organizational renewal
• Organizational memory
• Multilevel model.

Kaynakça

1. Aguinis, H., & Glavas, A. (2012). What we know and don’t know about corporate social responsibility: A review and research agenda. Journal of Management, 38(4), 932–968. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206311436079
2. Argote, L., & Miron-Spektor, E. (2011). Organizational learning: From experience to knowledge. Organization Science, 22(5), 1123–1137. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1100.0621
3. Argyris, C., & Schön, D. A. (1978). Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective. Addison-Wesley.
4. Ashby, W. R. (1956). An introduction to cybernetics. Chapman & Hall.
5. Benyus, J. M. (1997). Biomimicry: Innovation inspired by nature. William Morrow.
6. Benyus, J. M. (2002). Biomimicry: Innovation inspired by nature. Perennial.
7. Bigley, G. A., & Roberts, K. H. (2001). The incident command system: High-reliability organizing for complex and volatile task environments. Academy of Management Journal, 44(6), 1281–1299. https://doi.org/10.5465/3069401
8. Broccardo, L., Zicari, A., Jabeen, F., & Bhatti, Z. A. (2023). How digitalization supports a sustainable business model: A literature review. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 187, 122146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2022.122146

9. Bundy, J., Pfarrer, M. D., Short, C. E., & Coombs, W. T. (2017). Crises and crisis management: Integration, interpretation, and research development. Journal of Management, 43(6), 1661–1692. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206316680030
10. Burns, T., & Stalker, G. M. (1961). The management of innovation. Tavistock.
11. Caldara, D., & Iacoviello, M. (2022). Measuring geopolitical risk. American Economic Review, 112(4), 1194–1225. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20191823
12. Capra, F., & Luisi, P. L. (2014). The systems view of life: A unifying vision. Cambridge University Press.
13. Chang, X., Song, Z., & Zhou, T. (2025). Geopolitical risk and global supply chain resilience. Finance Research Letters, 86, Article 108551. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.frl.2025.108551
14. Chaplin, D. D. (2010). Overview of the immune response. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 125(2 Suppl. 2), S3–S23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaci.2009.12.980
15. Cohen, W. M., & Levinthal, D. A. (1990). Absorptive capacity: A new perspective on learning and innovation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35(1), 128–152. https://doi.org/10.2307/2393553
16. Cornelissen, J. P. (2005). Beyond compare: Metaphor in organization theory. Academy of Management Review, 30(4), 751–764. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2005.18378876
17. Crossan, M. M., Lane, H. W., & White, R. E. (1999). An organizational learning framework: From intuition to institution. Academy of Management Review, 24(3), 522–537. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1999.2202135
18. Daft, R. L., & Weick, K. E. (1984). Toward a model of organizations as interpretation systems. Academy of Management Review, 9(2), 284–295. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1984.4277657
19. DeVellis, R. F. (2017). Scale development: Theory and applications (4th ed.). Sage.
20. Ding, W., Levine, R., Lin, C., & Xie, W. (2021). Corporate immunity to the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Financial Economics, 141(2), 802–830. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2021.03.005
21. Duchek, S. (2020). Organizational resilience: A capability-based conceptualization. Business Research, 13(1), 215–246. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40685-019-0085-7
22. Edmondson, A. C., & McManus, S. E. (2007). Methodological fit in management field research. Academy of Management Review, 32(4), 1155–1179. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2007.26586086
23. Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532–550. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1989.4308385
24. Faraj, S., & Xiao, Y. (2006). Coordination in fast-response organizations. Management Science, 52(8), 1155–1169. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1060.0526
25. Hinkin, T. R. (1998). A brief tutorial on the development of measures for use in survey questionnaires. Organizational Research Methods, 1(1), 104–121. https://doi.org/10.1177/109442819800100106
26. Huang, J.-J. (2013). Organizational knowledge, learning and memory: A perspective of an immune system. Knowledge Management Research & Practice, 11(3), 230–240. https://doi.org/10.1057/kmrp.2011.48
27. International Organization for Standardization. (2015). Biomimetics — terminology, concepts and methodology (ISO Standard No. 18458:2015).
28. Ivanov, D. (2022). Viable supply chain model: Integrating agility, resilience and sustainability perspectives—Lessons from and thinking beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Annals of Operations Research, 319, 1411–1431. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-020-03640-6
29. Ivanov, D. (2023). The Industry 5.0 framework: Viability-based integration of the resilience, sustainability, and human-centricity perspectives. International Journal of Production Research, 61(5), 1683–1695. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2022.2118892
30. Jaakkola, E. (2020). Designing conceptual articles: Four approaches. AMS Review, 10(1–2), 18–26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13162-020-00161-0
31. Janeway, C. A., Jr., Travers, P., Walport, M., & Shlomchik, M. J. (2001). Immunobiology: The immune system in health and disease (5th ed.). Garland Science.
32. Kalaitzi, D., Matopoulos, A., Bourlakis, M., & Tate, W. L. (2018). Supply chain strategies in an era of natural resource scarcity. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 38(3), 784–809. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-05-2017-0309
33. Kara, O. (2025). Sağlıklı ve sağlıksız işletmelerde örgütsel bağışıklığın rolü: Bir sanayi işletmesinde uygulama [Yayımlanmamış doktora tezi]. Çukurova Üniversitesi.
34. Katz, D., & Kahn, R. L. (1978). The social psychology of organizations (2nd ed.). Wiley.
35. Kennedy, E., Fecheyr-Lippens, D., Hsiung, B.-K., Niewiarowski, P. H., & Kolodziej, M. (2015). Biomimicry: A path to sustainable innovation. Design Issues, 31(3), 66–73. https://doi.org/10.1162/DESI_a_00339
36. Kogut, B., & Zander, U. (1992). Knowledge of the firm, combinative capabilities, and the replication of technology. Organization Science, 3(3), 383–397. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.3.3.383
37. Kozlowski, S. W. J., & Klein, K. J. (2000). A multilevel approach to theory and research in organizations: Contextual, temporal, and emergent processes. In K. J. Klein & S. W. J. Kozlowski (Eds.), Multilevel theory, research, and methods in organizations: Foundations, extensions, and new directions (pp. 3–90). Jossey-Bass.
38. Langley, A. (1999). Strategies for theorizing from process data. Academy of Management Review, 24(4), 691–710. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1999.2553248
39. Lengnick-Hall, C. A., Beck, T. E., & Lengnick-Hall, M. L. (2011). Developing a capacity for organizational resilience through strategic human resource management. Human Resource Management Review, 21(3), 243–255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2010.07.001
40. March, J. G. (1991). Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning. Organization Science, 2(1), 71–87. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2.1.71
41. Morgan, G. (2006). Images of organization (Updated ed.). Sage.
42. Murphy, K., Weaver, C., & Berg, L. J. (2022). Janeway’s immunobiology (10th ed.). W. W. Norton & Company.
43. Nahapiet, J., & Ghoshal, S. (1998). Social capital, intellectual capital, and the organizational advantage. Academy of Management Review, 23(2), 242–266. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1998.533225
44. Nonaka, I. (1994). A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation. Organization Science, 5(1), 14–37. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.5.1.14
45. Olaizola, E., Morales-Sánchez, R., & Eguiguren Huerta, M. (2020). Biomimetic organisations: A management model that learns from nature. Sustainability, 12(6), Article 2329. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12062329
46. Olaizola, E., Morales-Sánchez, R., & Eguiguren Huerta, M. (2021). Biomimetic leadership for 21st century companies. Biomimetics, 6(3), Article 47. https://doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics6030047
47. Pankratz, N. M. C., & Schiller, C. M. (2024). Climate change and adaptation in global supply-chain networks. The Review of Financial Studies, 37(6), 1729–1777. https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhad093
48. Raisch, S., & Krakowski, S. (2021). Artificial intelligence and management: The automation–augmentation paradox. Academy of Management Review, 46(1), 192–210. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2018.0072
49. Sanchez, R., & Mahoney, J. T. (1996). Modularity, flexibility, and knowledge management in product and organization design. Strategic Management Journal, 17(S2), 63–76. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.4250171107
50. Scott, W. R., & Davis, G. F. (2007). Organizations and organizing: Rational, natural, and open system perspectives. Pearson Prentice Hall.
51. Staw, B. M., Sandelands, L. E., & Dutton, J. E. (1981). Threat-rigidity effects in organizational behavior: A multilevel analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly, 26(4), 501–524. https://doi.org/10.2307/2392337
52. Teece, D. J. (2007). Explicating dynamic capabilities: The nature and microfoundations of sustainable enterprise performance. Strategic Management Journal, 28(13), 1319–1350. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.640
53. Teece, D. J., Peteraf, M. A., & Leih, S. (2016). Dynamic capabilities and organizational agility: Risk, uncertainty, and strategy in the innovation economy. California Management Review, 58(4), 13–35. https://doi.org/10.1525/cmr.2016.58.4.13
54. Teece, D. J., Pisano, G., & Shuen, A. (1997). Dynamic capabilities and strategic management. Strategic Management Journal, 18(7), 509–533. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0266(199708)18:7%3C509::AID-SMJ882%3E3.0.CO;2-Z
55. Thompson, J. D. (1967). Organizations in action: Social science bases of administrative theory. McGraw-Hill.
56. Torraco, R. J. (2005). Writing integrative literature reviews: Guidelines and examples. Human Resource Development Review, 4(3), 356–367. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534484305278283
57. Uhl-Bien, M., Marion, R., & McKelvey, B. (2007). Complexity leadership theory: Shifting leadership from the industrial age to the knowledge era. The Leadership Quarterly, 18(4), 298–318. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2007.04.002
58. Verhoef, P. C., Broekhuizen, T., Bart, Y., Bhattacharya, A., Dong, J. Q., Fabian, N., & Haenlein, M. (2021). Digital transformation: A multidisciplinary reflection and research agenda. Journal of Business Research, 122, 889–901. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.09.022
59. Vincent, J. F. V., Bogatyreva, O. A., Bogatyrev, N. R., Bowyer, A., & Pahl, A.-K. (2006). Biomimetics: Its practice and theory. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 3(9), 471–482. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2006.0127
60. Walsh, J. P., & Ungson, G. R. (1991). Organizational memory. Academy of Management Review, 16(1), 57–91. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1991.4278992
61. Webster, J., & Watson, R. T. (2002). Analyzing the past to prepare for the future: Writing a literature review. MIS Quarterly, 26(2), xiii–xxiii.
62. Weick, K. E., & Sutcliffe, K. M. (2007). Managing the unexpected: Resilient performance in an age of uncertainty (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass.
63. Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing and the process of sensemaking. Organization Science, 16(4), 409–421. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1050.0133
64. Whetten, D. A. (1989). What constitutes a theoretical contribution? Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 490–495. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1989.4308371
65. Wieland, A. (2021). Dancing the supply chain: Toward transformative supply chain management. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 57(1), 58–73. https://doi.org/10.1111/jscm.12248
66. Wieland, A., & Durach, C. F. (2021). Two perspectives on supply chain resilience. Journal of Business Logistics, 42(3), 315–322. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbl.12271
67. Williams, T. A., Gruber, D. A., Sutcliffe, K. M., Shepherd, D. A., & Zhao, E. Y. (2017). Organizational response to adversity: Fusing crisis management and resilience research streams. Academy of Management Annals, 11(2), 733–769. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2015.0134