Ambidextrous Learning in Buyer-supplier Relationships

Achieving competitive advantage in a dynamic environment requires firms to exploit their current capabilities and explore new opportunities through innovation. Organizational learning theory refers to these two types of focused learning activities as exploitation and exploration, and jointly as ambidextrous learning. Suppliers can play an important role in the learning process. This research focuses on the role of strategic and operational information sharing between buyers and suppliers in promoting ambidextrous learning. Based on a survey of supply chain managers in U.S. manufacturing firms, the findings indicate that sharing operational information promotes exploitative performance, while sharing strategic information promotes exploratory performance. Both exploitative and exploratory performance improvements positively relate to the buyer’s financial performance, but these relationships are moderated by the buyer’s product innovation strategy. Exploratory performance is particularly important for firms pursuing a high innovation strategy to maximize financial performance.

In Search of Inspiration: External Mobility and the Emergence of Technology Intrapreneurs

Recent scholarship has established several ways in which external hiring—versus filling a role with a comparable internal candidate—is detrimental to firms. Yet, organizational learning theory suggests that external hires benefit firms: by importing knowledge that is unavailable or obscured to insiders and applying it toward experimentation and risky recombination. Accordingly and consistent with studies of learning by hiring and innovation, we predict that external hires are at greater risk of intrapreneurship than internal hires. We test this prediction via a study of product managers in large technology companies. We use machine learning to operationalize intrapreneurship by comparing product manager job descriptions with the founding statements of venture-backed technology entrepreneurs. Our research design employs coarsened exact matching to balance pretreatment covariates between product managers who arrived at their roles internally versus externally. The results of our analysis indicate that externally hired product managers are substantially more intrapreneurial than observably equivalent internal hires. However, we also find that intrapreneurial product managers have a higher turnover rate, an effect that is primarily driven by external hires. This suggests that hiring for intrapreneurship may be a difficult strategy to sustain.

Litigations with the home State and internationalization

Purpose This paper aims to investigate whether Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) can be driven by the creative compliance knowledge that firms gather in their home country through litigations with the government. Design/methodology/approach The authors draw on the knowledge-based view and organizational learning theory to argue that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between experience in litigating with the home State and a firm’s level of FDI. The authors test this hypothesis using negative binomial regressions on a sample of Spanish listed firms for the period between 1986 and 2008. Findings The findings of this study confirm the hypothesized inverted U-shaped relationship between a firm’s experience in litigating with the home State and its FDI levels. Firms seem to face an exploration–exploitation dilemma regarding their compliance with domestic regulation. Once they have accumulated a certain amount of creative compliance knowledge, it would be better for them to exploit it both domestically and internationally in the form of creative compliance routines, instead of continuing to push the limits of regulation. Originality/value Firms willing to explore the gray areas of the law are usually forced to litigate with the State. As a result, they develop creative compliance knowledge that they can incorporate into their legal routines and capabilities so that they can later exploit it in foreign countries. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that attempts to understand the influence of creative compliance knowledge on a firm’s international investments.

Take Your Time? How Activity Timing Affects Organizational Learning and Performance Outcomes

Organizational learning theory has long examined how organizations learn to perform better as they accumulate experience. Although experience accumulation is inherently related to the timing of the repeated activities carried out by an organization, the direct relationship between activity timing and organizational learning has not been examined explicitly in the literature and remains an open question. Organizational learning theory contains two competing perspectives on how timing should impact learning—one suggesting that iterating faster is better for learning and one suggesting that taking more time between iterations is more helpful. Here, we reconcile these perspectives and develop a theory about the boundary conditions between them, arguing that, in general, iterating more rapidly enhances learning but that iterations of novel or complex activities, or ones following recent failure, benefit from a slower pace. We conduct tests of this theoretical perspective using data from the entire history of the orbital satellite launch industry from 1957–2017, and we find broad support for our theory and hypotheses.

Environmental Management Systems (EMS) and learning in small and medium size establishments (SME) : a case study from the beverage industry

For businesses that are internally motivated to incorporate environmental management into daily practice, an environmental management system (EMS) is an effective tool to address environmental impacts. Yet, certification to formal EMS standards such as ISO 14001 may pose challenges for the unique needs of a small and medium-sized establishment (SME) such as Company Y, who seeks systematized environmental management while maintaining flexibility and openness. The researcher explores the proposition that EMS implementation and performance of an SME in the position of Company Y can be optimized by incorporating key tenets of Organizational Learning theory (OLT) into decision making and operations. Primary questioning, observation and literature research are used to characterize Company Y’s environmental decision-making and communication structure. For growing SMEs that are not comfortable with the formal requirements of third party EMS certification, this thesis suggests that OLT can be an effective approach to integrate environmental management into their business.

Environmental Management Systems (EMS) and learning in small and medium size establishments (SME) : a case study from the beverage industry

For businesses that are internally motivated to incorporate environmental management into daily practice, an environmental management system (EMS) is an effective tool to address environmental impacts. Yet, certification to formal EMS standards such as ISO 14001 may pose challenges for the unique needs of a small and medium-sized establishment (SME) such as Company Y, who seeks systematized environmental management while maintaining flexibility and openness. The researcher explores the proposition that EMS implementation and performance of an SME in the position of Company Y can be optimized by incorporating key tenets of Organizational Learning theory (OLT) into decision making and operations. Primary questioning, observation and literature research are used to characterize Company Y’s environmental decision-making and communication structure. For growing SMEs that are not comfortable with the formal requirements of third party EMS certification, this thesis suggests that OLT can be an effective approach to integrate environmental management into their business.

Moderating Effect of Organizational Capability on the Relationship Between Business Intelligence Capability and Performance Among Public Listed Firms in Kenya

Business Intelligence remains a primary focus in many organisations and it naturally attracts significant investment. Existing literature is nebulous and fragmented on the real impact and how well the insights induced by this technology have been transformed into successful business learning. Consequently, this paper focuses on determining the influence of organizational capabilities on the relationship between Business Intelligence capability and firm performance. The study employed interdisciplinary theories to realize the research objective, namely Information Systems Capability theory and Organizational Learning theory. In addition, the study was conducted using mixed methods research methodology and a crosssectional approach. The study used structural equations modeling technique (Partial Least Squares approach- SEM-PLS) to analyse quantitative data and validate the developed research model. Thematic analysis aided by Atlas.ti version 8 software was applied to analyse qualitative data. Findings of quantitative and qualitative strands of the study were triangulated at the data analysis stage based on convergence model. Results revealed that organizational capability has a positive and significant moderating impact. The findings provide fresh enlightenment into current Business Intelligence literature and opportunities for future research with implications for management, policy makers, and academia.

The mediating role of product planning and development on the relationship between markets strategies and export performance

To ensure competition and survival of business, understanding the indicators or drivers of export performance is important. Based on the organizational learning theory and strategic fit theory, this study aims to test the influence of market exploration strategies (MERS) and market exploitation strategies (METS) on SMEs’ export strategic performance, export financial performance (EFP), and export customer performance (ECP). This study confirms the leading mediating role of product planning and development (PPD) in the effects of MERS and METS on export performance outcomes. The authors collected questionnaire data electronically from 122 experienced SMEs that conduct international transactions in Saudi Arabia. Results from the Analysis of Moment Structures indicate that MERS and METS positively influence export performance; PPD mediates the relationship between MERS and METS in export performance dimensions; and number of sales and ownerships are control variables that influence EFP and ECP, respectively. This study contributes to the literature and society by proposing a framework that addresses the direct and indirect relationships between export marketing strategies and PPD, and their effects on SMEs’ export performance.

Critical realism and organizational learning

Purpose This study aims to investigate the implications of applying critical realism to the study of organizational learning. It considers critical realism as an alternate theoretical science foundation to the domains of empirical realism and social constructivism that characterize most of the field of organizational learning. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts the approach of a philosophical/conceptual discussion. Findings This study finds that the critical realist approach makes it possible for organizational learning researchers to apply a prescriptive change agenda. It requires researchers to study the context in which organizational learning occurs. These two features enable the researcher to propose what the world must be like for organizational learning to occur. Hence, a critical realist foundation moves organizational learning theory a step closer to its theoretical sibling, the learning organization. Originality/value This study reveals the potential in applying critical realism to the study of organizational learning and identifies its related strengths.