Organizational Learning Capability: Generating and Generalizing Ideas with Impact

230 Pages·1999·10.7 MB·English

by  Arthur K. Yeung

Organizational
Learning
Capability
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ORGANIZATIONAL
LEARNING
CAPABILITY
Arthur K. Yeung
David 0. Ulrich
Stephen W. Nason
Mary Ann Von Glinow
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1999
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York
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and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1999 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Organizational learning capability / Arthur K. Yeung . . . [et al ]
p cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-510204-5
1 Organizational learning. I Yeung, Arthur K.
HD58 82 0744 1998
658—dc21 98-3797
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 42
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper.
PREFACE
The four of us began our learning journey in 1992, when we received
funding from the International Consortium of Executive Development
and Research (ICEDR) and the University of Michigan Business School
to answer a simple question: How do organizations learn?
Organizational learning, knowledge, and intellectual capital have
been frequently discussed in the literature and among managers, but
relatively little broad-based, rigorous empirical research had been
done to examine how organizations approached the learning process.
After reviewing this literature, and with support from our sponsors,
we decided to create and administer a survey on how organizations
learn. This survey was based on frameworks and ideas in the litera-
ture, taken from case studies and theories of learning, and it drew
heavily on the work of Chris Argyris and Jim March.
We believed that an empirical assessment of how organizations
learn would complement the case studies, personal experiences, and
frameworks that had been published in other learning work; and we
were lucky enough to have the kind of sponsorship that enabled us
to send surveys to companies throughout the world, so that key in-
formants could answer questions about how their businesses dealt
with the learning process. Ultimately, we collected data from about
400 companies in 40 countries. Our study of these data, we believe,
is one of the largest empirical studies to date on how organizations
learn.
As we pursued this research, we also decided to complement our
vi Preface
empirical work with in-depth case studies. Todd Jick, a member of
our research team, prepared a case on Alcatel Bell's learning process
as it entered the global telecommunications market; Steve Nason
took the lead on the Samsung Electronics case as this company
learned about the microelectronics market; Arthur Yeung examined
how Hewlett Packard's Video Communication Division changed from
an analytical instrument manufacturer to a key player in emerging
video technologies. Collectively, these cases and the empirical re-
search gave us rich insights into the processes whereby organizations
learn.
After we collected our data and did preliminary analyses, we had
to struggle to articulate our findings in a way that would be readily
accessible to managers yet rigorous enough for academic research.
After much angst and difficulty in trying not to oversimplify, we de-
rived our simple "g X g" expression: Organizational learning capa-
bility = Generating ideas X Generalizing ideas with impact. This
definition helped us focus and synthesize our efforts. We also began
exploring the different learning styles inherent in how organizations
generate knowledge and the processes by which ideas are generalized
across boundaries. Our empirical data were particularly helpful in un-
derstanding learning styles; our case studies and consulting experi-
ences helped us with idea generalization. At the same time, we
focused on the learning disabilities, or blockages, that hindered many
of the companies in our survey sample from learning. We found that
executives may articulate a learning strategy and even invest consid-
erable resources in it, but unless certain disabilities are overcome, a
company's learning capability can be seriously impaired.
As we began to present our work at conferences of both managers
and academics, two things happened. To our delight, managers who
had been intellectually convinced that learning was important, but
were confused by the morass of terms, concepts, conjectures, and
assertions in the academic literature, started to use our ideas for as-
sessing learning capability and made investments to improve learning.
Academics also helped us to explore the theories underlying our find-
ings. Now, we believe our research and thinking about learning will
serve many audiences. For executives who understand that their or-
ganization's ability to learn is important, we offer both empirical ev-
idence that learning matters and specific tools for generating and
generalizing ideas with impact. For managers who want to improve
their units' capacity to learn, we provide diagnostic tools and action
templates that can be quickly adapted to most situations. For chief
learning officers, or those responsible for creating learning organiza-
Preface vii
tions, we offer blueprints and examples that might be followed to
improve learning practice. For academics interested in how learning
theory can be tested and applied to practice, we offer empirical results
on learning styles, disabilities, and processes.
We decided to take this project beyond the scope of the journal
articles that we have already published on this topic and turn our
results into a book, in the hope of reaching a wider audience—that
is, all those humble HR managers and unit leaders who are beginning
to go from the belief stage to action on learning within their organi-
zations. Our goals, as both academics and consultants committed to
helping managers with the practical issues of running a company,
have been to shift ideas on learning from theory to reality; to move
beyond broad, grandiose statements about learning to specific man-
agement tools that can make learning happen; and to replace the
mystique of learning with sound research.
Of course, our learning journey requires many acknowledgments
and thanks. We appreciate the time and effort put in by all the survey
respondents who completed our questionnaires and by the managers
in companies in which we collected case-study data. We acknowledge
the intellectual heritage of the many researchers and theorists who
have helped us craft our own work, including most notably Chris
Argyris, Jim March, Ikujiro Nonaka, David Garvin, and Jerry Porras.
We are deeply grateful for the funding from the University of Michi-
gan, which was sponsored by Ron Bendersky (who is also a colleague
and friend) and Doug Ready at ICEDR, whose financial support and
agenda triggered our research. We are also grateful to Todd Jick,
whose work on the cases, instruments, and research design was cru-
cial to the effort. We also wish to acknowledge William Snyder, who
helped identify the initial list of learning disabilities, and Fred Lu-
thans, who encouraged us to publish our early work in Organiza-
tional Dynamics.
And in writing this work, we especially want to thank Martha Nich-
ols. We drafted this in many stages, and turning it into a readable and
coherent book was no minor task. Martha has a wonderful sense of
style and touch, and she helped us clarify our ideas and select our
words so that the work will be accessible to many. Finally, we thank
the Internet and various e-mail servers that allowed authors in the
four corners of the world to share information and edit chapters more
quickly than if we had had offices next door.
We hope our learning journey generates new insights, challenges,
and ideas that can be generalized to each reader, going beyond what
is presented in this book. In fact, that's the whole point of learning:
viii Preface
never resting on one's laurels or ceasing to question what comes next.
No matter how much of a believer in learning you already are, you
need to translate such beliefs into real management practices that
ensure organizational learning capability.
Hong Kong, China A. Y.
Ann Arbor, Michigan D. U.
Hong Kong, China S. N.
Miami Beach, Florida M. A. V. G.
March 1998
CONTENTS
ONE Organizational Learning: From Theory to Reality 3
TWO What We Know about Organizational Learning:
Different Learning Styles 19
THREE A Model for Organizational Learning Capability:
The Three Building Blocks 41
FOUR Generating Ideas with Impact: 3M, HP, and Other "Idea
Machines" 60
FIVE Generalizing Ideas with Impact: The Gase of Samsung
Electronics 83
SIX Identifying Learning Disabilities: Samsung Revisited and
Three Health Care Systems 102
SEVEN Building Organizational Learning Capability:
A Blueprint for Learning Architects 121
EIGHT Learning Matters, Warts and All: Diary of a
True Learning Organization 142
Worksheets 155
Appendix 1: Notes on Research Methodology and Participating
Companies 173
Appendix 2: Survey Research Instrument 191
Notes 201
Index 211