Journal Article•
How to make experience your company's best teacher.
TL;DR: A group of social scientists, business managers, and journalists at MIT have developed and tested a tool called the learning history, a written narrative of a company's recent critical event, based on the ancient practice of community storytelling that can build trust, raise important issues, transfer knowledge from one part of the company to another, and help build a body of generalizable knowledge about management.
Abstract: In our personal life, experience is often the best teacher. Not so in corporate life. After a major event--a product failure, a downsizing crisis, or a merger--many companies stumble along, oblivious to the lessons of the past. Mistakes get repeated, but smart decisions do not. Most important, the old ways of thinking are never discussed, so they are still in place to spawn new mishaps. Individuals will often tell you that they understand what went wrong (or right). Yet their insights are rarely shared openly. And they are analyzed and internalized by the company even less frequently. Why? Because managers have few tools with which to capture institutional experience, disseminate its lessons, and translate them into effective action. In an effort to solve this problem, a group of social scientists, business managers, and journalists at MIT have developed and tested a tool called the learning history. It is a written narrative of a company's recent critical event, nearly all of it presented in two columns. In one column, relevant episodes are described by the people who took part in them, were affected by them, or observed them. In the other, learning historians--trained outsiders and knowledgeable insiders--identify recurrent themes in the narrative, pose questions, and raise "undiscussable" issues. The learning history forms the basis for group discussions, both for those involved in the event and for others who also might learn from it. The authors believe that this tool--based on the ancient practice of community storytelling--can build trust, raise important issues, transfer knowledge from one part of a company to another, and help build a body of generalizable knowledge about management.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors define and explore the legitimacy of an action-oriented research approach in OM, and the particular logic and value of applying action research (AR) to the description and understanding of issues in OM.
Abstract: A fundamental methodological question guides this paper: How can operations managers and researchers learn from the applied activity that characterises the practice of OM? To address this question, defines and explores the legitimacy of an action‐oriented research approach in OM, and the particular logic and value of applying action research (AR) to the description and understanding of issues in OM. Begins with a review of the role of empirical research in OM and how AR features within the OM research literature. Introduces the theory and practice of AR and outlines the AR cycle and how AR is implemented. Finally, describes the skills required to engage in AR and explores issues in generating theory. Concludes with the assertion that AR is relevant and valid for the discipline of OM in its ability to address the operational realities experienced by practising managers while simultaneously contributing to knowledge.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors introduce a dynamic learning perspective of entrepreneurship that builds upon existing "dominant" theoretical approaches to understand entrepreneurial activity and propose three distinctive, interrelated elements of entrepreneurial learning: dynamic temporal phases, inter-related processes, and overarching characteristics.
Abstract: This conceptual article introduces a dynamic learning perspective of entrepreneurship that builds upon existing “dominant” theoretical approaches to understanding entrepreneurial activity. As many aspects of entrepreneurial learning remain poorly understood, this article maps out and extends current boundaries of thinking regarding how entrepreneurs learn. It presents key conclusions from emergent empirical and conceptual work on the subject and synthesizes a broad range of contributory adult, management, and individual learning literature to develop a robust and integrated thematic conceptualization of entrepreneurial learning. Three distinctive, interrelated elements of entrepreneurial learning are proposed—dynamic temporal phases, interrelated processes, and overarching characteristics. The article concludes by demonstrating how a “learning lens” can be applied to create further avenues for research in entrepreneurship from a learning perspective.
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Cites background from "How to make experience your company..."
...As Kleiner and Roth (1997) point out, in certain instances individuals continue to make mistakes and ‘seem to stumble along, oblivious to the lessons of the past…Most important, the old ways of thinking that led to the mistakes are never discussed, which often means that they are still in place to…...
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...Although learning is a continuous process (Mumford, 1991), it appears that confronting and overcoming challenges and problems can be rich sources of learning (Daudelin, 1996; Kleiner and Roth, 1997)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the way in which firms can enhance alliance performance through the development of alliance capabilities and uncover how differences in sources of alliance capability development explain performance heterogeneity.
Abstract: This study centers around the way in which firms can enhance alliance performance through the development of alliance capabilities. Whereas most research has focused on inter-firm antecedents of alliance performance, research on intra-firm antecedents pointing to prior experience and internal mechanisms to foster knowledge transfer has only recently emerged. As little is known about how firms develop alliance capabilities, this study aims to uncover how differences in sources of alliance capability development explain performance heterogeneity. The data come from a detailed survey held among alliance managers and Vice-Presidents of 151 firms. The survey covers over 2600 alliances for the period 1997-2001. This study not only finds that alliance capabilities partially mediate between alliance experience and alliance performance, but also yields novel insights into the micro-level building blocks underlying the process of alliance capability development.
472 citations
Cites background from "How to make experience your company..."
...Lack of experience and ignorance are said to be a critical cause for alliance failure (Kleiner and Roth, 1987; Lei and Slocum, 1992)....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the way in which firms can enhance alliance performance through the development of alliance capabilities through a detailed survey held among alliance managers and vice-presidents of 151 firms.
Abstract: This study centres around the way in which firms can enhance alliance performance through the development of alliance capabilities. Whereas most research has focused on inter-firm antecedents of alliance performance, research on intra-firm antecedents pointing to prior experience and internal mechanisms to foster knowledge transfer has only recently emerged. As little is known about how firms develop alliance capabilities, this study aims to uncover how differences in sources of alliance capabilities explain performance heterogeneity. The data are derived from a detailed survey held among alliance managers and Vice-Presidents of 151 firms. The survey covers over 2600 alliances for the period 1997–2001. This study not only finds that alliance capabilities partially mediate between alliance experience and alliance performance, but also yields novel insights into the micro-level building blocks underlying the process of alliance capability development.
429 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore how companies can best grow their knowledge resources to create not simply competitive advantage, but sustainable competitive advantage by using knowledge and intellectual capital as the primary bases of core competencies and the key to superior performance.
428 citations