The role of capital investment project teams in organisational learning

The management and organisation of capital projects in the British National Health Service (NHS) is dependent upon project teams. An analysis of four case studies shows how these teams also act as agents of learning for individuals and the organisation. This article considers the process by which learning came about. In particular it identifies the ability of the project teams to develop a parallel organisation within a wider organisational context. These teams develop specific rules, roles and relationships which help individual project team members to more effectively share their knowledge with others and their organisation.     

Technological change in energy systems: Learning curves, logistic curves and input-output coefficients

Learning curves have recently been widely adopted in climate-economy models to incorporate endogenous change of energy technologies, replacing the conventional assumption of an autonomous energy efficiency improvement. However, there has been little consideration of the credibility of the learning curve. The current trend that many important energy and climate change policy analyses rely on the learning curve means that it is of great importance to critically examine the basis for learning curves. Here, we analyse the use of learning curves in energy technology, usually implemented as a simple power function. We find that the learning curve cannot separate the effects of price and technological change, cannot reflect continuous and qualitative change of both conventional and emerging energy technologies, cannot help to determine the time paths of technological investment, and misses the central role of R&D activity in driving technological change. We argue that a logistic curve of improving performance modified to include R&D activity as a driving variable can better describe the cost reductions in energy technologies. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the top-down Leontief technology can incorporate the bottom-up technologies that improve along either the learning curve or the logistic curve, through changing input-output coefficients. An application to UK wind power illustrates that the logistic curve fits the observed data better and implies greater potential for cost reduction than the learning curve does.     

Learning by doing,spillovers and shakeouts

This paper studies industry evolution driven by non strategic learning by doing and spillovers. We characterize a dynamic process of cost and output changes and its effect on welfare and industry profits. The paper gives conditions for shakeouts to occur and analyzes the key factors affecting these conditions. Since shakeouts could lead to a long-run social loss due to higher market concentration, there is a role for a government to play in limiting unnecessary shakeouts. The most effective way to do so is to enhance spillovers.JEL Classification: L11, L13, O31Correspondence to: Michael TroegeWe would like to thank Hans Mewis, Christophe Moussu and an anonymous referee for valuable comments and suggestions. We also benefited from comments of seminar participants at WZB, Humboldt University, Northwestern University and the EEA/ESEM 1999 meetings. Part of the research was carried out while Michael Tröge was visiting Northwestern University. Financial support by the German Research Council (DFG) is gratefully acknowledged.     

Selection dynamics and adaptive behavior without much information

This paper uses the experimental method to investigate behavior in a coordination game when the information available to subjects is limited to their feasible choices and their experienced payoffs. In the experiment subjects converge to an absorbing state at rates that are orders of magnitude faster than reinforcement learning algorithms, but slower than under complete information. This state is very close to a mutual best response outcome. All cohorts converged to the market statistic predicted by the interior equilibrium regardless of the information conditions or the stability conditions. Eric Battalio programmed the graphical user interface. The National Science Foundation and Texas Advanced Research Program provided financial support. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the Texas Advanced Research Program.     

中国企业的技术选择

本文以“企业技术能力”研究范式为基础 ,运用技术学习战略决定的数理模型 ,从理论角度剖析了现实企业选择技术学习战略的动因。并以案例为实证 ,探究了中国企业技术选择的行为机理 ,提出了相关对策。     

Strategic trading and learning about liquidity

Many practitioners point out that the speculative profits of institutional traders are eroded by the difficulty in gauging the price impact of their trades. In this paper, we develop a model of strategic trading where speculators face such a dilemma because of incomplete information about time-varying market liquidity. Unlike the competitive market makers that they trade against, informed traders do not know the distribution of liquidity (“noise”) trades. Instead, they have to learn about liquidity from past prices and trading volume. This learning implies that strategic trades and market statistics such as informational efficiency are path-dependent on past market outcomes. Our paper also has normative implications for practitioners.     

Collectivist values for learning in organizational relationships in China: the role of trust and vertical coordination

Partners must engage in integrative interaction in order to combine diverse expertise and experiences into effective learning. Results from 103 pairs of customer and supplier organizations in China indicate that trust and vertical coordination are useful ways to characterize this integrative interaction and together they promote learning. Structural equation analysis suggests that collectivist but not individualist values are important foundations for integrative interaction between partners that result in learning. These findings were interpreted as reaffirming the value of effective relationships for coordination between partners and suggesting that collectivist values can be a source of effective organizational relationships.     

Organizational learning and market orientation: interface and effects on performance

This paper discusses the relationship between market orientation and organizational learning and, in particular, the former's contribution to the generation of double-loop learning. Although prior contributions on this topic have been controversial, the authors, departing from the principles of RBV, consider market orientation a resource capable of generating higher order organizational learning and, in this way, capable of additionally reinforcing firms' sustainable competitive advantage. The empirical study provides evidence on the existing relationship between a firm's learning and market orientation degree and the organization's economic and non-economic results. Findings indicate that learning orientation stimulates the market-oriented behavior and that it also positively affects the establishment of long-term relationships with strategic clients. Contrary to prior research a significant and positive effect on business performance is only contrasted in the case of market orientation.     

From dilemmatic struggle to legitimized indifference: Expatriates’ host country language learning and its impact on the expatriate-HCE relationship

We address the lack of knowledge concerning the role of host country languages in multinational corporations based on an inductive qualitative study involving 70 interviews with Nordic expatriates and host country employees (HCE) in China. Building on the strongly discrepant views of expatriates and HCEs, we demonstrate how expatriates’ willingness to learn and use the host country language lead to different types of expatriate-HCE relationships, ranging from harmonious to distant or segregated. In doing so, we emphasize the subtle and fragile connection between expatriates’ attitude towards HCEs’ mother tongue and trust formation in addition to the construction of superiority-inferiority relationships.     

Market maker competition and price efficiency: Evidence from China

We test the relationship between market maker competition and stock price efficiency. Using the number of market makers as a proxy for competition, the results show a strong positive correlation between competition and stock price efficiency. Moreover, price efficiency is higher when competing market makers have higher research ability. We suggest that market maker competition increases price efficiency through two channels: 1) Competition decreases transaction costs, and 2) Uninformed market makers learn from orders submitted by informed market makers through competition. The latter happens only in the group of market makers with higher experiences. The results imply that the price efficiency can be improved by enhancing the competition of market makers with high research ability and experiences.