Organizational forgetting Part II: a review of the literature and future research directions

Abstract

<jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title> <jats:p>The purpose of this two-part paper is to provide a summary of current research opportunities in organizational forgetting literature and a future research agenda.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title> <jats:p>The summary of current research opportunities and future research agenda is drawn from the systematic literature review and synthesis reported in Part I.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title> <jats:p>Two broad areas for future research are proposed: A first area that highlights a need to address integrative theoretical challenges that include issues of temporality, history, power dynamics, and organizational context. A second area that highlights a need to reconcile contradicting explanations – such as whether technological sophistication and codification practices versus social networks prevent knowledge depreciation and loss – through a multilevel perspective.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Research limitations/implications</jats:title> <jats:p>Limitations relate to time span coverage and journal article accessibility.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title> <jats:p>This Part II paper provides a summary of current research opportunities and offers directions for future research on organizational forgetting.</jats:p> </jats:sec>

Knowledge loss induced by organizational member turnover: a review of empirical literature, synthesis and future research directions (Part I)

“…Aiming to create a comprehensive data set as well as avoid potential overlooking of any important empirical contributions on KLT, this review followed the practice of including articles published in both 3-, 4-or 4*-level journals and 1-and 2-level journals ranked by AJG 2018 (Mariano et al, 2020a). Based on the previous reviews of organizational forgetting literature (Klammer & Gueldenberg, 2019;Mariano et al, 2020aMariano et al, , 2020b, it was deemed appropriate to consider a broader range of journals for building a data set for this Knowledge loss induced by turnover review, thus covering all subfields within which business and organization research is published according to AJG 2018.…”

“…These damaging consequences include, however, are not limited to deterioration of organizational knowledge base (Daghfous et al, 2013), loss of organizational identity (Ciuk & Kostera, 2010) and overall decrease in performance and productivity (Brymer & Sirmon, 2018). Mariano et al (2020aMariano et al ( , 2020b distinguish between two types of accidental forgettingknowledge depreciation, i.e. a more gradual knowledge decay, and knowledge loss, or more immediate knowledge disappearance.…”

“…a more gradual knowledge decay, and knowledge loss, or more immediate knowledge disappearance. There is a growing body of literature documenting and explaining underlying mechanisms of knowledge loss and assessing its impact on organizations (Mariano et al, 2020a(Mariano et al, , 2020b. Furthermore, there is emerging evidence that knowledge loss can be both managed and prevented (Klammer & Gueldenberg, 2019;Mariano et al, 2018), which seems to depend on several factors, of which the cause of knowledge loss is the most crucial (de Holan & Phillips, 2004).…”

De-Implementation: Lessons to be Learned when Abandoning Inappropriate Homelessness Interventions

“…A great deal of the research that focuses on phasing out (disinvestment) and closely related concepts such as "de-implementation", "reassessment", "priority setting", "de-adaption", or "resource allocation" are technically oriented and are focused on technological systems in health care (Garner et al, 2013;Rushmer & Davies, 2004). Concepts such as "un-learning", "re-learning", "de-learning", and "de-institutionalization" are suggested but only discussed to a limited extent, in particular when compared with the literature that is solely focused on management (Becker, 2019;Durst et al, 2020;Mariano et al, 2020a;Mariano et al, 2020b;Sharma & Lenka, 2019). A particular problem is the extensive and ambiguous terminology used to describe phasing out in social welfare services, and researchers have identified 43 closely related concepts (Gnjidic & Elshaug, 2015).…”

Incorporating the risk of knowledge loss in supply chain risk management

“…Employee turnover may sometimes be considered as a desirable event that could reduce cost and eliminate outdated and counterproductive knowledge. It might even be the result of a planned downsizing that aims at unlearning predetermined knowledge, hence an intentional knowledge loss (Mariano et al , 2020). Schulz (2001) went even further and appropriately called for enabling the loss of the type of knowledge that hinders further learning, while preventing the loss of the type of knowledge that increases also learning and performance.…”