Linking organizational learning with technical innovation and organizational culture

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of organizational learning on technical innovation and the role of organizational culture as a determinant of the organizational learning processes.Design/methodology/approach -After reviewing the literature on organizational learning and its relationship with both, technical innovation and organizational culture, this paper analyzes those relationships using a sample of 451 firms.Findings -Findings reveal that organizational learning is positively associated with technical innovation and that organizational culture can foster both organizational learning and technical innovation but can also act as a barrier. Additionally, findings show that in order to enhance innovation neither a flexibility focus nor an external focus are enough. Both of them are necessary to characterize organizational culture.Research limitations/implications -The main limitations of this paper are the cross-sectional design of the empirical research and the fact that data were collected from one source only.Practical implications -Findings can guide managers' efforts in the development of an organizational culture which fosters both organizational learning and innovation since they show that adhocracy culture fosters both of them and that a hierarchy culture may act as a barrier for them.Originality/value -The paper focuses on the little-researched relations between organizational culture, organizational learning and innovation. Moreover, it focuses on the Spanish context, where there is a lack of studies on this issue. Finally, the paper provides empirical evidence that these relations exist. In particular, adhocracy enhances both learning and innovation the most, while hierarchy inhibits them most.

Assessing the links between organisational cultures and unlearning capability: evidence from the Spanish automotive components industry

“…We also hypothesised the existence of a positive link between adhocracy culture and unlearning (H1b) and the existence of a negative link between hierarchy culture and OU (H1d). Despite there is some evidence in the literature that supports the links among these cultural typologies and firm innovativeness (Sanz-Valle et al, 2011), our results does not provide evidence for these hypotheses.…”

“…Organisational culture (OC) is among these critical drivers and several studies have addressed the links between OC and OL within firms (De Long and Fahey, 2000;Sanz-Valle et al, 2011). Nevertheless, this research needs to be supplemented with evidence of the relationship between OC and organisational unlearning (OU) in order to enable a more complete understanding of this phenomenon.…”

“…Therefore, organisations need to face this complexity by regularly renewing their knowledge bases. According to Sanz-Valle et al (2011), organisational learning (OL) plays a critical role in this renewal. Thus, being innovative and fostering OL processes and routines can lead organisations to reach lasting competitive advantages and hence, obtaining better performance than its competitors.…”

Export Market Orientation and Organizational Knowledge Enhance Export Market Performance

“…The questions were adapted from previous study. The measure for export market orientation was adopted from that used by Cadogan et al (1999) and organization knowledge from Sanz-Valle et al (2011). A 5 point Likert scale ranging from "strongly disagree" (1) to "strongly agree" (5) were used to scale these items measuring the independent variables.…”

Organizational Culture: Case of the Finnish Construction Industry

“…In addition, prior studies have illustrated that OC (Cameron and Quinn, 2006) can be regarded as a contextual factor or social environment that affects a firm's learning processes in acquiring and using knowledge (Sanz-Valle et al, 2011). Some studies have pointed out that the distinct characteristics of OC may have favourable or unfavourable effects on an organization's mechanisms for gaining and using external knowledge ( Janz and Prasarnphanich, 2003;Harrington and Guimaraes, 2005).…”