Learning And Innovation Essay

914 Words2 Pages

LEARNING AS A DYNAMIC CAPABILITY INFLUENCING
INNOVATION IN ORGANIZATIONS
Karina Kenk
Introduction
Learning is a multi-layered and multidimensional construct (Nonaka 1994; Zollo and Winter
2002). Learning can be individual or collective (Huber 1991) resting on multiple sources of knowledge (Malerba 1992). Learning and innovation are related constructs, when considering how they are defined in the literature. Nonaka (1994: 14) understood innovation as “a process in which the organization creates and defines problems and then actively develops new knowledge to solve them”. Huber (1991: 89) takes a behavioural perspective on learning, claiming that “An entity learns if, through its processing of information, the range of its potential behaviors is changed”. In other words, both learning and innovation are related to processing of information and developing new knowledge. In the literature of dynamic capabilities (DC) and innovation, learning is a frequently mentioned construct (Teece et al
1997). By reviewing the literature on learning and innovation, we try to answer the following research questions:
• What is the role of organizational learning in the development of the dynamic capabilities? • How is individual learning transformed into organizational learning and what are the factors facilitating organizational learning?
• How is learning contributing to innovation performance and consequently to the performance of the firm?
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows – first an overview of the relations between learning and dynamic capabilities is given. Then some of the microfoundations for learning and the factors contributing organizational learning are reviewed. Third, an overview of empirical studies studying the relat...

... middle of paper ...

...nizational learning includes some information content, a learning product (information, know-how, or understanding), a learning process which consists in acquiring, processing, and storing information, and a learner to whom the learning process is attributed”. Therefore Nonaka (1994) emphasizes the roles of informal communities for social interaction on one hand and the formal provisions for building knowledge on the other hand in the process of organizational learning. Malerba
(1992) advances the following propositions concerning learning:
• learning is a costly and targeted process that takes place within the firm;
• learning is linked to different sources of knowledge that may be either internal or external to the firm;
• learning is cumulative and increases firms' stock of knowledge;
• firms' specific stock of knowledge generate mostly local and incremental inn

Open Document