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Ant colonies: building complex organizations with minuscule brains and no leaders

  • Organization Zoo
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A Correction to this article was published on 01 April 2021

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Abstract

Thus far the articles in the series JOD calls the “Organization Zoo” have employed the notion of a “zoo” metaphorically to describe an array of human institutions. Here we take the term literally to consider the design of the most complex organizations in the living world beside those of humans, a favorite of insect zoos around the world: ant colonies. We consider individuality and group identity in the functioning of ant organizations; advantages of a flat organization without hierarchies or leaders; self-organization; direct and indirect communication; job specialization; labor coordination; and the role of errors in innovation. The likely value and limitations of comparing ant and human organizations are briefly examined.

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Acknowledgements

The description of the market strategy of the fire ant was adapted by MWM from Moffett (2010) with the permission of the University of California Press.

Funding

SG supported by the DARPA Young Faculty Award under Grant D19AP00046.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, 1000 Constitution Ave NW, Washington, DC, 20560, USA

    Mark W. Moffett

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 428A Central King Building,, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA

    Simon Garnier

  3. Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University, 475 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA

    Kathleen M. Eisenhardt

  4. INSEAD, Boulevard de Constance, 77300, Fontainebleau, France

    Nathan R. Furr

  5. Department of Management, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Dorsoduro 3246, 30123, Venice, Italy

    Massimo Warglien & Costanza Sartoris

  6. Gies College of Business, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, 61820, USA

    William Ocasio

  7. Department of Marketing and Management, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, Odense M, Denmark

    Thorbjørn Knudsen

  8. Department of Management, Aarhus University, Fuglesangs Allé 4, 8210, Aarhus V, Denmark

    Lars A. Bach

  9. Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Vejlsøvej 25, 8600, Silkeborg, Denmark

    Joachim Offenberg

Authors
  1. Mark W. Moffett
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  2. Simon Garnier
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  3. Kathleen M. Eisenhardt
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  4. Nathan R. Furr
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  5. Massimo Warglien
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  6. Costanza Sartoris
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  7. William Ocasio
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  8. Thorbjørn Knudsen
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  9. Lars A. Bach
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  10. Joachim Offenberg
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Contributions

MWM was responsible for the conception, drafting, and revising of the manuscript. SG contributed to several sections and to editing and revising the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Mark W. Moffett.

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Moffett, M.W., Garnier, S., Eisenhardt, K.M. et al. Ant colonies: building complex organizations with minuscule brains and no leaders. J Org Design 10, 55–74 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41469-021-00093-4

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