Organizational learning
Innovation can be usefully characterized as a learning process.
Learning is intrinsically cumulative: firms, regions and countries usually innovate along specific and quite rigid trajectories.
Technological progress and innovation usually involve a variety of learning processes which may be obtained either from internal or external sources. The relative relevance of these sources of knowledge is largely firm- and technology- specific.
Learning and innovation are intrinsically a collective and interactive process that involves access to, interactions among, integration of and complex feedbacks between heterogeneous agents, technical skills and fragments of knowledge, competencies and capabilities.
Main concepts on organizational learning
Lewin proposed a model for change that was used also as a model for learning and that suggested three phases: unfreezing of existing system, introduction of new values and behaviours and refreezing. Unfreezing is supposed to be caused by the evidence that certain actions brought unintended inconsistencies, that should be naturally refused by human beings, determining the search for new and more satisfactory elements to be introduced in the system.
Argyris (1992) underlines an aspect that is strictly connected with innovation processes:
“Learning is defined as occurring under two conditions. First, learning occurs when an organization achieves what it intended; that is, there is a match between its design for action and the actuality of outcome. Second, learning occurs when mismatch between intentions and outcomes is identified and it is corrected; that is, a mismatch is turned into a match.”
Moreover, Argyris differentiate between two types of organizational learning according to the reaction to errors. If there is a correction without questioning or altering the underlying values of the system, we have a single-loop learning, while if questioning and altering takes place we have a double-loop learning.
The model developed by Nonaka (1995) is built on two new aspects:
• Knowledge can be created, other than distributes
• Relevance of the relational aspect of knowledge, which is generated not only from individual learning but also from social interaction.
The model incorporates Polaniy’s classification of knowledge in tacit and explicit. These two types of knowledge are linked through four knowledge conversion processes: socialization, exteriorization, combination, and interiorization.
A list of organizational conditions that support learning processes within an organization: availability of information, management style, personal and structural resources, organizational structures and systems, rules, procedures and power dynamics, culture, external factors.
Solutions for organizational learning
Organizational learning can be promoted in different ways and using different tools.
The alternatives are selected according to the specific situation, which is determined by numerous factors. According to how the situation is positioned among these and other dimensions, the enterprise can use one or more of the learning solutions.
Knowledge management
Whether an innovation is developed internally or acquired from an external source, it implies new knowledge for the organization, that has to be managed in all the phases of the process in order to transform it in a sustainable competitive advantage.
Knowledge concerns a higher level of the organizational mechanisms and entails much more than information:
• it is partly tacit
• it is specific to agents and applications
• it is much less easy and more costly to transmit than information
• it is local
• its creation and use implies (often substantial) competencies, investment and efforts
• also the acquisition of knowledge from external sources (e.g. imitation) is not costless and automatic but requires pre-existing capabilities
• hence, agents will typically differ in what they know: heterogeneity in technological capabilities becomes a central characteristic of economies
• levels and distribution of knowledge become a fundamental source of competitive advantages for enterprises, regions and countries
Knowledge management consists in the ability of identifying and manage the knowledge that is available in the organization in order to build a competitive advantage, the ability of leading and managing human resources with a competencies approach and the ability of acting dynamically on accumulation/destruction/regeneration cycles of knowledge/competencies (Ruta and Turati, 2002).
Knowledge can be transformed in value for the organization in different ways: its reuse allows efficiency and effectiveness gains, while its refining and its recombination allow incremental innovations.
Knowledge management systems
There are four main expectations toward a knowledge management system:
• Decrease of research time
• Increase of effectiveness of the research process
• Quality guaranties on intercepted knowledge
• Guaranties on effectiveness of re-contextualization of intercepted knowledge
Roles that a knowledge management system should perform to meet these expectations: