Sustainable Development in Supply Chain Management: The Role of Organizational Learning for Policy Implementation

Implementing sustainable policies in supply chains is a significant challenge for businesses. Recent evidence has shown that failure to manage supply chains responsibly can have significant impacts on firms' reputation and financial performance. In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework, which focuses on organizational learning, and outline specific channels through which firms can generate learning processes and build appropriate capabilities to successfully implement social and environmental supply chain policies. Drawing on 57 in‐depth interviews from a cross‐sectional sample of seven UK and nine German companies, we empirically assess our conceptual framework in accordance with a grounded, in‐depth case study analysis approach. We find compelling evidence to suggest that organizational learning is an important factor for a successful implementation of sustainable supply chain management. Organizational learning is often established as a result of training, knowledge acquisition, stakeholder engagement and collaboration between intra‐organizational and inter‐organizational partners, including suppliers and NGOs. Nonetheless, our results also emphasize that firms often have few systematic processes through which organizational learning is developed, and that such learning processes are often ad hoc at best, which in turn has significant implications for the responsible supply chain practices. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Planning knowledge for phased rollout projects

This paper explores how projects that can be considered as repeatable and replicable in a sequence of deliverables over a period of time can be planned and executed (rolled out) in a way that maximizes knowledge transfer and production from one execution to the next. A variety of management disciplines were reviewed to understand the way that project and program rollouts are treated in IT, product development, organizational learning, and manufacturing literature. These reviews enabled the development of a conceptual model to describe how planning and implementing the rollout of a product or service can be more knowledge‐focused and an accompanying capability maturity model. Several examples from real life, including one experienced by one of the authors, were used to illustrate and test the conceptual model. The model integrates knowledge management, change control, and planning in a way that can develop organizational learning and the authors assert that this can improve productivity and both tangible and intangible returns to those that follow the model. An accompanying capability maturity model is also presented. The conceptual model, while initially tested against several real‐life cases, needs to be tested against a new set of projects as an action learning research project in order to more fully develop knowledge of the dynamics of learning and improvement in rollout projects. The implication is that when project managers undervalue important learning aspects of phased rollouts, they may miss important organizational learning opportunities.     

Learning barriers: a framework for the examination of structural impediments to organizational change

The body of knowledge on organizational learning is believed to be large and fragmented. Therefore, this knowledge seems to be of limited use to practitioners. We, however, present an alternative review of the most important publications on organizational learning that deals explicitly with learning barriers. The structural causes of problems with organizational learning are related to malfunctioning components of the cybernetic learning system of the organization. Thus, it became clear that the body of knowledge on organizational learning is less fragmented and does not contain any contradictions. This resulted in our construction of a framework in which the major contributions on organizational learning are integrated. It allows practitioners to use strengths of multiple theories to analyze change management problems. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Conceptualizing the processes,benefits, and challenges of organizational lifelong learning at Yuhan-Kimberly,Korea: the notion of anticipative affordance

This research investigates, reports, and theorizes Yuhan-Kimberly's journey to establish its organizational lifelong learning program in Korea. Based on a four-year longitudinal study and the principles of grounded theory, we propose the notion of anticipative affordance to elaborate the process through which benefits derived from an organization's lifelong learning are created, interconnected, and amplified through the gradual and long-term building and accumulation of shared understanding and commitment. Main theoretical contributions derived from this study are threefold. First, the concept of anticipative affordance enhances our understanding about the key process and challenges related to organizational lifelong learning. Second, anticipative affordance serves as a bridge to synthesize the separation between the cognitive and situated aspects of learning. Third, our research empirically illustrates how collective benefits of organizational learning are actualized over time through the development of learning mechanisms and through the integration of its individual members' learning.     

身份模糊性情景下组织如何实现双元学习?

移动互联时代,组织身份模糊性成为企业发展面临的一个新挑战.通过观察一家传统书店成长为新型文化空间的过程,探索了企业如何在身份模糊性情形下达成双元学习,从而实现持续发展.组织面临的身份模糊性主要表现为身份矛盾性和身份空泛性.通过进一步的分析,发现身份模糊性情形下实现双元学习包含两条路径:①身份矛盾性情景下需要组织进行多重...     

Benchmarking As a Learning Tool In Voluntary Non-Profit Organizations

This paper explores the benefits of benchmarking in voluntary non-profit organizations. The principal benefit is argued to be that of serving as a management tool to promote organizational learning. A case study illustrating some of the key issues associated with the adoption of benchmarking at the Royal Blind Society of New South Wales is presented to illustrate how the technique enhances organizational learning.     

组织学习方式与知识创新研究综述

本文首先对国内外组织学习方式与知识创新理论进行了分析,从不同角度探讨和比较组织学习方式,并对知识创新理论进行了研究。最后分析组织学习方式与知识创新之间的紧密关系。     

Organizational interfaces and innovation: The challenge of integrating supplier knowledge in LEGO systems

Suppliers have become increasingly important as partners in firms' innovation efforts. Reaping potential collaboration benefits is complex due to challenges in combining internal and external knowledge. The paper explores how various types of organizational interfaces between buyer and supplier create both opportunities and problems for their joint actions. The paper is based on a longitudinal case study of attempts to develop an innovative packaging solution for the toy manufacturer LEGO systems. The study shows that buying firms need to carefully analyse what form of organizational interface access to prioritize since each type offers its specific possibilities and drawbacks. Furthermore, the feasibility of organizational interfaces may change over time due to mutual organizational learning.     

组织学习与国际化企业营销动态能力构建——基于华为、海尔、联想的跨案例分析

本文基于组织学习、动态能力理论,从营销动态能力的视角,运用跨案例研究方法,对华为、海尔、联想三家成功的国际化企业进行了分析,得出如下结论:营销动态能力是企业国际化成长的重要能力;企业在不同发展阶段的营销动态能力不同,表现为各种企业能力的组合;组织学习对企业营销动态能力的培养起到了重要作用。     

关于企业构建与应用学习型组织的研究

进入二十世纪,经济一体化程度不断加深,消费者需求瞬息万变,技术创新层出不穷,产品周期日益缩短,这些变化促使企业必须随时保持警惕。短期来看,企业在竞争中占据优势依靠的是先进的技术和产品,但从长远发展来说,真正能够帮助企业走在领先者行列的是及时把握市场,不断提升自身实力的核心竞争力。而这种核心竞争力的强弱,关键则看企业自主学习能力是否能够支撑企业不断进步。本文认为学习型组织以其内部极强的学习能力和持续的创新能力实现了组织核心竞争力的提升,为组织发展提供了一种全新的模式。     

Exploring an innovative pivot: How green training can spur corporate sustainability performance

In general, studies on green innovation practices have primarily taken an innovation view to study the costs and benefits to firms. What has been less examined, however, is how green training spurs the intentions and advantages of green innovation. Thus, this paper explores how and when green training influences the likelihood of firms to achieve sustainability performance by using organizational learning theory. Using a dataset of 231 Chinese manufacturing firms, our work shows that green training is positively correlated to corporate sustainability performance via the indirect effect of green innovation behavior. We also find an increasingly positive indirect effect that is conditional on ambidextrous learning; specifically, this indirect effect is least positive for firms with lower ambidextrous learning capacity but stronger for those firms having higher ambidextrous learning capacity. We hold that the key to spurring corporate sustainability performance through green training lies mainly in advancing firms' green innovation behaviors and persistently enhancing their capacities for ambidextrous learning. Thus, this study offers not only new theoretical insights for understanding the effect of green training on corporate sustainability performance but also practical implications for improving corporate sustainability performance within a green economy context.     

MBA情境化教育的新思路——行动学习的发展及国内外典型应用案例分析

急剧变化的外部环境对管理教育的有效性提出了更高要求,情境化教育成了应对这一挑战的有效措施,行动学习为如何提高情境化程度提供了另一种思路。本文对行动学习的起源及发展进行了历史探究,认为其快速发展得益于20世纪80年代的两股潮流,即组织学习理论以及体验式学习和日本企业所引起的美国企业界和商学院的反思。这两股潮流夯实了行动学习的理论基础并确立了GE公司"群策群力"等行动学习应用典范。GE公司的标杆作用以及其阶梯式的课程安排、行动学习与现代信息技术的融合,以及哈佛商学院等行动学习项目的开展可以为国内企业和商学院管理教育的提升提供一定的借鉴,弥补情境化教育中情境化程度不足的缺憾。     

The labour relations heritage and lean manufacturing at Fiat

The objective of the paper is interpreting, from an evolutionary perspective, recent developments of work organization and human resource management policies at Fiat Auto, one of the world's largest automobile manufacturers, which achieved a successful restructuring in the early 1990s. Building on a heritage of adversarial labour relations and ‘mass production’ organizational principles, Fiat developed an original and to some extent hybrid version of ‘lean’ human resource management practices (teamwork, flexible compensation, multi-skilling, etc.).

The paper analyses this process of organizational change from an evolutionary perspective based on the concept of dynamic capabilities. From this standpoint, IR. HRM and work organization practices are the result of a learning process, based on original development, imitation, analogical replication, combination and selection of organizational capabilities; organizational capabilities have a cumulative and path-dependent nature; workplace innovations are also rooted in organizational absorptive capacities, that is, the ability of firms to exploit new (and often extramural) organizational and HRM developments; the existence of complementarities among organizational competencies, assets and choices in term of HRM are likely to push toward the adoption of a set or system of (rather than single and insulated) innovations in work organization, HRM practices and industrial relations policies.

The data provided in the paper show that the process of innovation of workplace practices at Fiat Auto (summarized by the concept of the Fabbrica Integrata) is curiously non-linear. The newly designed HRM policies have, on the one hand, been resisted by the unions (who have not been involved in the design process) and by segments of the work-force; on the other hand, they have been hindered by existing organizational features and personnel practices which, in turn, were key success factors during the 1980s. This inertia is significantly lower at the new greenfield plant of Melfi. On the whole, the restructuring process was successful from the competitive and financial standpoint, and represents the basis on which management and the unions can develop a new co-operative model of industrial relations.     

Managerial and organizational learning in Hungarian–Western mixed management organizations

The radical changes in Eastern Europe which aim to transform these economies into market economies put the issue of organizational and individual adaptation at the centre of attention. Hungarian-Western mixed management organizations are regarded as effective tools for helping this adaptation process. This paper examines, through the example of five joint ventures, what practices are to be changed and what problems arise in terms of organizational and individual adaptation and learning. For the theoretical framework, the author draws together the insights of four types of learning approaches with structural contingency theory, strategy-structure and strategic choice theories, institutional theory of organizations and organizational change theories. The paper finds that there are changes in the organizational routines and procedures as a response to changes in the contingent factors. Westerners do not, however, necessarily play a positive role as agents of change in introducing strategic thinking among Hungarian managers. This problem relates to the phenomenon of new paternalism which also makes it easier for Westerners to cope with the problems of not being able to change the old philosophies of their Hungarian staff.     

Policy instruments for sustainability‐oriented organizational learning

The concept of sustainable development implies the need for organizational learning in business corporations to find innovative solutions. In this context, the paper analyzes the requirements and options for environmental policy to induce sustainability‐related learning processes in corporations. It discusses the impacts of different policy instruments on these processes. Initially, the particular challenges of organizational learning for sustainability are being sketched out. Drawing on organizational learning studies, a subsequent section of the paper addresses fundamental elements and drivers for organizational learning processes on different levels in business corporations. The particular nodes where public policy can influence corporate learning processes are the central focus of these considerations. On this basis, we examine existing policy instruments frequently used in environmental policy with regard to their potential to foster learning processes towards sustainability. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

组织学习研究综述

为了了解近年来国内外组织学习研究现状,本文主要基于中国国家图书馆、中国期刊全文数据库、中国优秀博硕士学位论文全文数据库、Taylor & Francis Online Journals、EBSCOhost数据库、Emerald全文数据库等国内外优秀数据库,并辅助其他资料,对近年来国内外组织学习研究现状进行了分析和总结,对未来的组织学习研究进行了展望。     

基于终身学习与组织学习的学习型物流企业研究

探讨了物流企业终身学习与组织学习内涵、方式及其意义,建立学习型企业的途径与方式。分析了在终身学习与组织学习的条件下有效进行知识管理以及知识链和学习链管理的意义,推进企业知识传播、共享和创新的过程与机制。建立了学习型组织模型。     

价值创新战略:基于组织学习矩阵影响的效用模式分析

运用组织学习矩阵,构筑了组织学习对企业价值创新的影响模式,指出单环学习是组织价值创新的重要基础,双环学习是实施组织价值创新的重要手段,混合学习通过促进学习来保证组织价值创新得以实现,最终揭示出单一的学习方式并不能保证企业获得持续竞争优势,只有采用与环境特性适配的战略学习组合才是企业基业常青之道。     

From Trade Among Nations to Trade Within Firms Across National Borders

SUMMARY

Based on international economics, evolutionary economics, and organizational theories, this paper discusses the evolution of the multinational corporation's intra-organizational cross-border trade and production network. The paper suggests that firms are social and economic entities, whose intra-organizational, cross-border trade and production networks coevolve with their multilocal competitive environments. Since organizational evolution, technological innovation, and organizational learning are path-dependent, a firm-specific inertia makes it to differentiate itself from its competitors in both its intra-organizational network and market outcome. The growing trends in intra-firm transactions and intra-firm division of labor on global basis present a challenge to national governments. This paper discusses intra-firm cross-border trade versus arm's-length international trade and the implications for national-based policies.     

Predictors of organizational commitment in India: strategic HR roles,organizational learning capability and psychological empowerment

Employee commitment continues to be one of the most exciting issues for both practitioners and academicians. Linkages in literature are found for HRM Practices, but there is a lacuna of research linking organizational commitment and strategic HR roles, psychological empowerment as well as organizational learning capability. The current study examines these linkages. Whether these variables predict organizational commitment in Indian managers or not, is also investigated. The sample size of the study comprises of 640 Indian managers. Bivariate and multivariate analysis confirms the hypotheses drawn from the literature. The paper discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the findings.