Organizational Learning and Knowledge Research Group
The Organizational Learning and Knowledge (OLK) Research Group has been working since the mid-1990s to advance both theoretical and practical implications of learning and knowledge within organizational settings. There is a core group at Lancaster, which has organized four major conferences since 1996 and contributed significantly to the development of the international OLKC network.
The work of this group has been supported by a number of research grants from the ESRC and the EPSRC, and has produced significant academic and practitioner output over this period, including:
Easterby-Smith, M., Lyles, M. and Tsang, E. (2008) ‘Inter-organizational knowledge transfer: current issues and future prospects’. Journal of Management Studies, 45(4), 661-674.
Prieto, I. and Easterby-Smith, M. (2006) ‘Dynamic capabilities and the role of organizational knowledge’. European Journal of Information Systems, 15(5), 500-510.
Hong, J., Easterby-Smith, M. and Snell, R. (2006) ‘Transferring organizational learning systems to Japanese subsidiaries in China’. Journal of Management Studies, 43(5), 1027-1058.
Prieto, I. and Easterby-Smith, M. (2006) ‘Dynamic capabilities and the role of organizational knowledge’. European Journal of Information Systems, 15(5), 500-510.
Easterby-Smith, M, Lyles, M (Eds) (2003) Blackwell Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management. Oxford: Blackwell, 676 pp.
Easterby-Smith, M, Thorpe, R and Lowe, A (2002) Management Research: An Introduction. London: Sage. 194 pp. (2nd Edn).
Easterby-Smith, M., Crossan, M & Nicolini, D (2000) ‘Organizational learning: debates past, present and future’, Journal of Management Studies, 37(5), 783-796.
Easterby-Smith, M, Araujo, L & Snell, R. (Eds), (1999) Organizational Learning and the Learning Organization: Developments in Theory and Practice. London: Sage, 247 pp.
Enquiries may be directed to:
Helen Ashman
Research Secretary
Department of Management Learning & Leadership
Lancaster University Management School
Lancaster LA1 4YX
Tel: + 44–(0)1524–593851
Fax: + 44-(0)1524-844262
Email: h.ashman@lancaster.ac.uk
Academic Staff
Professor Mark Easterby-Smith, Director
Dr Carole Elliott, Deputy Director
Kathryn Fahy, Research Associate
Alexslis Nyuyfoghan, KTP Associate
Research Students
Anne Parsons
Wan-Ching Tsai
Irina Mikhailava
Selen Kars
Maureen Chan (p/t)
Suzanne Gagnon (p/t)
Associates
Professor Marjorie Lyles, Indiana University, USA
Professor Robin Snell, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
Dr Isabel Prieto, Iniversidad de Valladolid, Spain
Dr Jacky Hong, University of Macau, Macau
Dr Wayne StAmour
Current Projects
Knowledge and Information Management through Life
Lancaster University is among several other universities involved in the Knowledge and Information Management through Life (KIM) initiative. KIM is a large UK-based interdisciplinary project that is researching issues around knowledge management associated with the shift from product [1] delivery to through-life service support. Firms are increasingly required not only to supply products, but also to provide support services throughout that product’s useful life. This is said to require new business, operational and information system models that extend thirty years or more into the future.
The focus of Lancaster’s research (KIM Task 2.2) is to examine issues around learning processes and knowledge flows associated with a greater focus on customer service interactions and the apparent shift from product delivery to through-life service support. Our approach to thinking about organisational learning and knowledge emphasises the importance of both social and organisational aspects and processes.
Between 2005 and 2008 we conducted extensive fieldwork in four major European companies in the electric power and aerospace industries. Results from these studies are being collated and a series of conference and journal papers are currently being developed.
Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Converteam Ltd.
In 2008 we started a KTP which aims to assist Converteam develop dynamic, sustainable and competitive strategies for knowledge management. The project involves two parallel and strongly interacting activities: one ‘mapping’ the skills of key employees and their exchange of tacit information, the other considering the representation and management of explicit knowledge required to execute the conventional tasks of contract engineering. The former area is being conducted by Lancaster University, and the latter by the University of Bath.
The investigation has three stages. The first stage will identify the important collaboration networks, the second will develop and pilot interventions to improve the most significant knowledge management deficiencies, and the third will develop cost benefit measures to evaluate the interventions.
The project is addressing questions such as:
- How should we inventory, value, enhance and use our knowledge resources?
- Should knowledge be made explicit? If so, how is this organised and achieved?
- What are effective ways of facilitating knowledge sharing networks in a distributed organization?
- What are sustainable long-term knowledge management policies?
- How do we measure the competence of our knowledge sharing and exploitation processes, for example, by comparison with other similar organisations?
Past Projects
Organizational Learning and Dynamic Capabilities
This was part of the ESRC’s Evolution of Business Knowledge (EBK) programme, which ran from 2003-2007. The aims of our project were to extend the idea of dynamic capabilities through the addition of recent insights from the field of organizational learning; and to examine the application of the concept through empirical studies of organizations located outside the USA.
The methods involved interviews with managers and employees in a large European chemical company, a small IT company and two NHS hospitals. Analysis involved the tracking of innovations in products, processes and structures, leading to a thematic analysis comparing different groups within the same organization and the way themes were manifest across organizations. This process of analytic induction was informed by the principles of grounded theory.
Our diverse sample has enabled us to elaborate on the view that dynamic capabilities are context- and path-dependent: thus the factors that make two separate companies dynamic are often quite different, and are not transferable or substitutable. However, a number of factors repeat frequently in different organizations: the ability to absorb and exploit external knowledge; pro-activity inside and outside the organization; a strong focus on innovation at all levels; and structural flexibility. One unexpected finding is that dynamic capabilities often lie in the successful combination of apparently opposite characteristics, such as: direction and empowerment; internal knowledge creation and external networking; pro-activity and reactivity; and exploration and exploitation. Moreover, their integration is largely a political process, which also takes note of temporal and spatial dimensions. Our case studies give insights into these theoretical processes.
There are several implications for user communities, which are being further supported by additional fieldwork and case studies funded under the AIM Initiative and the EPSRC/ESRC Grand Challenge:
(a) for senior managers: the importance of the strategic/operational interface; the need to support innovative culture and not to control details; the need to legitimize emergent strategies; a tendency for radical innovation support systems to become normalised; and a need for caution over KM systems and communities of practice and
(b) for policy-makers: caution about adoption of promising practices, especially when moving across contests/cultures; and internal illustrations of the politicisation of performance measurement systems.
Advanced Institute of Management Research
From 2003-2007, Mark Easterby-Smith was a senior Fellow of the UK’s Advanced Institute of Management Research (AIM). This enabled him to contribute both to new research projects and to wider ‘capacity building’ for academic researchers across UK business schools. He played a central role in the development, growth and professionalization of the British Academy of Management (BAM) throughout the Fellowship, becoming President in 2006. Among other things he initiated a series of national workshops on grant writing and academic publishing which continue under the ESRC RDI funds and are beginning to pay off, with several recent successes of participants gaining ESRC grants.
Using AIM funds he extended the above study on the Evolution of Business Knowledge to investigate dynamic capabilities in another two international companies, and subsequently with a sample of 11 organisations in China. This work on dynamic capabilities was further consolidated by collaborating with Margie Peteraf (Dartmouth) and Marjorie Lyles (Indiana) to run an international symposium on dynamic capabilities, from which the strongest papers have been selected for a special issue of the British Journal of Management.
During the second year of the Fellowship he developed a stream of work on inter-organisational knowledge transfer, which included working with Eric Tsang (Texas) and Marjorie Lyles to edit a special issue of the Journal of Management Studies on this topic; this has been further developed through empirical work with Simon Collinson (Warwick), looking at knowledge transfer issues between Chinese companies and foreign multinationals.
The AIM grant also supported work on methodological outputs including two symposia on collaborative research (BAM Conference and Lancaster University), an Academy of Management symposium on qualitative research, a special issue of Organisational Research Methods, with Karen Locke (William and Mary) and Karen Golden-Biddle (Boston University), and a third edition of the highly successful Sage textbook on Management Research with Richard Thorpe (Leeds) and Paul Jackson (Manchester Business School).
Alumni Profiles
Ann Cunliffe PhD Management Learning, 1997
Sara Khan PhD Management, 2006
Brad Jackson PhD Management Learning, 1999
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[1] The word “product” is used here to encompass all sorts of products - buildings, equipment, ships, aircraft, etc.
