3. ○ Identification of four main constructs
□ Knowledge acquisition
□ Information distribution
□ Information interpretation
□ Organizational memory
○ Description and critique of the associated literatures
□ Lack of theory
□ Numerous processes and subprocesses involved
□ Fragmented contributions
Overview of the literatures on
organizational learning
3
5. Distinction intentional/unconscious learning
Learning -> not necessarily true knowledge
Learning -> no necessary change in behavior
Four attributes of learning: existence, breadth, elaborateness, thoroughness
Advocacy for a broad view of
organizational learning
5
7. ○ Congenital learning
Congenital knowledge: inherited by the founders + institutional knowledge (Meyer and
Rowan 1977)
Learning starts before organizational genesis
KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION
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8. Learning also:
Can be unintentional
Come through experience (learning
curve)
Pros and cons of the literature
Multiple methods/ fresh insights
Lacks formal work/ lacks integration
KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION
8
○ Experimental learning
Intentional: organizational
experiments
Self-appraisal: focus on member
interactions
Experimental organizations
The author says this is not practically
implemented
But there is progress : Now some companies
are serial experimenters (Booking.com)
Podcast on the topic
9. ○ Vicarious learning: learning from the competition/ tendency
to imitate.
○ Grafting: direct acquisition of new knowledge through new
knowledgeable members
○ Search and noticing: firms scan the environment
focused search is preferably avoided if possible
but performance is monitored
Need for more conceptual work and theory-testing field work
KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION
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10. ○ Determines breadth of organizational learning
Enables knowledge retrieval
○ Points out there is a void of research:
□ How possessors of valuable knowledge and those who need
it are matched. –Maybe an opportunity to study internal platforms?-
INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION
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11. ○ Sense making process
○ Extent of shared interpretation hinges on:
□ Cognitive maps
□ Framing
□ Media richness
□ Information overload
□ Unlearning -> intentionally discarding information
INFORMATION INTERPRETATION
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12. ○ Issues of storage and retrieval -> computers have an important
role:
○ Computer-base organizational memory
□ Construction based on the knowledge of experts
○ Organizational memory is crucial to the other steps
○ - Opportunity? Distinguish and study organizational working memory and long
term memory (just like the brains and computers).-
ORGANIZATIONAL MEMORY
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14. ○ Interaction between machine learning and organizational learning
○ Giving more granularity to the concept of organizational memory –working and
long-term?-
○ How organizations learn distant or close information (Piezunka and Dahlander 2015)
○ Focus on the unlearning of practices no longer acceptable–fur industry as an interesting
case to study-
□ How different targets (Financial vs CSR) influence what is learnt
IDEAS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
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