Organizational life cycle based on the model of Lester, Parnell and Carraher (2003) and on fuzzy logic: classification of the companies of an industrial sector in Santa Catarina

Abstract

The goal of this study is to identify the stages of the organizational life cycle, based on the model of Lester, Parnell and Carraher (2003), of companies in the industrial sector of electrical materials, devices and machines of the State of Santa Catarina. The authors conducted a descriptive study using a quantitative approach, also based on a survey that involved submitting company managers to a questionnaire. The population consisted of the 264 companies of the said sector listed with the Finance Bureau of the State of Santa Catarina, and a non-random sample of the 40 companies that answered the survey. The identification variables of the lifecycle stages used in the questionnaire were drawn from Lester, Parnell and Carraher (2003). A statistical technique called fuzzy logic was applied to the research data. The research results showed that 57.5% of the companies were in the startup stage, 15% in the growth stage, 7.5% in the maturity stage, 10% in the rejuvenation stage and 10% in the decline stage. The authors concluded that certain stages of the organizational lifecycle are close to each other and that one cannot clearly perceive a deterministic progression in the stages of the lifecycle as a unique, definitive and irreversible sequence, in the traditional biological sense.