Center for Organizational Learning Innovation and Knowledge

Center For Organizational Learning, Innovation and Knowledge

The abilities to learn new knowledge, to retain that knowledge, and to transfer it effectively are key to the success of organizations. Center research advances understanding of organizational learning and knowledge retention and transfer. Because knowledge management is inherently an interdisciplinary problem, the center brings together researchers from different disciplines, including organizational behavior, business technology, information systems, operations management, psychology, economics and strategy. This interdisciplinary community advances our understanding of the psychological, social, cultural, organizational, technological and economic factors that affect knowledge creation, retention and transfer in firms.

Research


The following are examples of the center's current research projects.

  • “Is Failure Always the Mother of Success? Examination of Learning from Failure in the Context of Heart Surgeons,” coauthored by Sunkee Lee (Carnegie Mellon University) and Jisoo Park (Carnegie Mellon University). This research aims to better understand the processes and outcomes associated with learning from failure experiences. On the one hand, failure experiences provide opportunities for individuals to learn and improve their performance. However, on the other hand, the accumulation of failures could impair individuals’ motivation to learn by inducing negative emotions such as the sense of helplessness. This research uses data on cardiothoracic surgeons to examine this tension in learning from failures.
     
  • “Organizational Routines and Adaptability: The Effects of Routines in Buildings TMS and Enabling Team Performance,” a dissertation by Jerry Guo, now at Aarhus University. This dissertation investigates how organizational routines, analogous to standard operating procedures or processes, facilitate the emergence of transactive memory systems and thereby enable performance on new tasks. Results from the study suggest that organizations can remain adaptive to changing tasks if they store knowledge in routines and procedures, if those routines enable members of teams to learn about one another’s skills.
     
  • “Personnel Mobility and Organizational Performance: The Effects of Specialist vs. Generalist Experience and Organization Work Structure,” coauthored by Erin Fahrenkopf (Stanford), Jerry Guo (Aarhus University), and Linda Argote (Carnegie Mellon University), examines the factors predicting whether a new organization member can transfer their knowledge to the organization. The project focuses on the division of work in organizations, arguing that experience working as a specialist endows new members with different knowledge than experience working as a generalist. Specialist movers are less likely to transfer knowledge to their new organizations, and experience a particular disadvantage when they join generalist organizations, leading to worse performance when compared to generalist movers. These results suggest that new employees with broad experience may be better contributors to their new organizations.

Support

The center provides seed funding, post-doctoral researching funding and student support.

  • Bryon Balint (Tepper School of Business), "Management and Service Provider Relationships in IT-enabled Outsourcing"
     
  • Gerard Beenen (Tepper School of Business), "The Effects of Learning and Performance Goal Orientations on Creativity"
     
  • Matthew Diabes (Tepper School of Business), "Team Well-being, Transactive Memory and Team Performance"
     
  • Erin Fahrenkopf (Tepper School of Business), "Knowledge Transfer by Employees Across Firm Boundaries: A Micro Process with Consequential Macro Outcomes”
     
  • Erica Fuchs (Engineering and Public Policy), "Design for Location: The Impact of Offshoring on Technology Competitiveness in the Optoelectronics Industry"
     
  • Limor Golan, "Promotion and Turnover of Executives"
     
  • Jerry Guo (Tepper School of Business), "Organizational Routines and Adaptability"
     
  • Elina Hwang (Tepper School of Business), "Learning to Cross Boundaries in Online Knowledge Communities"
     
  • John Kush (Tepper School of Business), "The Influence of Communication Networks and Turnover on Transactive Memory Systems and Team Performance"
     
  • Jonathan Kush (Tepper School of Business), "How Training Moderates the Relationship between Turnover and Group Performance"
     
  • Sunkee Lee and Jisoo Park (Tepper School of Business), "Seniority-contingent Learning from Others' Failures within Organizations: Evidence from Micro Data on Heart Surgeons"
     
  • Jisoo Park (Tepper School of Business), "How Employing Contractors Affects Knowledge Transfer in Hospitals"
     
  • Sae-Seul Park (Tepper School of Business), "How Performance Incentives Impact the Utilization of Shared Knowledge"
     
  • Sae-Seul Park (Tepper School of Business), "Are Knowledge Sharing and Learning Trade-offs"
     
  • Hong Qu (Tepper School of Business), "Learning to Coordinate in Team Production through Prediction Markets"
     
  • Param Vir Singh (Tepper School of Business), "Developer Learning Dynamics in Open Source Software Projects"
     
  • Baohung Sun (Tepper School of Business), "Value of Learning and Acting on Customer Information"
     
  • Roberto Weber (Social and Decision Sciences), “Reflective Learning and Transfer of Learning”
     
  • Courtney Williamson (Tepper School of Business), "Community College Student Performance: The Effects of a Remedial Intervention, Demographic Factors, and Psychological Factors on Student Achievement and Retention"
     
  • Courtney Williamson (Tepper School of Business), "The Effect of Explicit and Implicit Communication on the Development of Transactive Memory Systems and Team Performance"

Ella Miron-Spektor (Ph.D. the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology), was a Fulbright-ISEF-Rabin Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Center (2006-2007). In 2007, a paper Miron-Spektor co-authored with Miriam Erez and Eitan Naveh was a Best Student Paper Award Finalist, Academy of Management, Technology and Innovation Management Division, "Balancing Innovation Attention-To-Detail and Outcome-Orientation to Enhance Innovative Performance." In 2008, Miron-Spektor was a Sloan Industry Studies, Best Dissertation Award Finalist for "A multilevel perspective on innovation: The personal characteristics, team composition and organizational culture that lead to idea generation and implementation."

The Center has provided funding for Ph.D. students to attend the Organization Science Winter Conference, the Annual Meetings of the INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) Meetings and the Academy of Management Meetings as well as seed money to support their research.

Conferences

View conferences in which the center has participated.

Conference in Honor of James Gardner March
October 4-5, 2019
Tepper School of Business
Carnegie Mellon University. 

The conference was organized by Dan Levinthal (Wharton), Arie Lewin (Duke University) and Linda Argote (Carnegie Mellon University).

Researchers from around the world came together to celebrate the remarkable life and the exceptional research contributions of Jim March. Panels were held on topics central to Jim's work: organizational learning, decision making, search, exploration versus exploitation, and the use models in organization science. Current research in these areas was presented.

Organization Science Winter Conference (OSWC XXIV) on Technology and the Modern Organization
March 1-3, 2018
Park City, Utah

The conference was co-organized by Gautam Ahuja (Cornell University), Linda Argote (Carnegie Mellon University), Gino Cattani (New York University), PuayKhoon Toh (University of Texas at Austin) and Anita Woolley (Carnegie Mellon University).

This conference brought together scholars from a variety of disciplines to examine the many facets and implications of how organization structures, systems, practices and cultures are shaping technology and how technology is also shaping these structures, systems, practices and cultures.

Organization Science Winter Conference (OSWC XXIII) on Creating, Retaining, and Transferring Knowledge in Organizations
February 2-5, 2017
Park City, Utah

The conference was co-organized by Zur Shapira (New York University), Terri Griffith (Santa Clara University), Kyle Lewis (University of California, Santa Barbara) and Linda Argote (Carnegie Mellon University).

This conference highlighted points of intersection across research in fields including management, organization theory, psychology, economics and sociology, and brought to the fore themes that address organizational learning and knowledge.

Learning in Social Contexts
May 2016

The Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh and the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University co-sponsored the conference. It was organized by John Levine and Linda Argote.

The conference brought together leading researchers from several disciplines (e.g., social and cognitive psychology; education; organizational behavior; strategic management) whose work addresses learning processes and outcomes in social contexts. The goal of the conference was to highlight current work on both individual and collective learning. Although substantial theoretical and empirical work has been done within each of these traditions, little effort has been made to bring them together. It is hoped that the conference will promote development of a more integrated perspective on learning in and learning by groups and organizations.

SCALE Conference
March 2013
Pittsburgh, PA 

An interdisciplinary group of researchers met in Pittsburgh to discuss supporting collaboration across large environments. The group, which is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, included computer scientists, psychologists, sociologists and organizational behavior researchers.

Organization Science Winter Conference (OSWC-XVII) on Organizational Memory
February 11-13, 2011
Steamboat Springs, CO

The conference was co-organized by Dan Levinthal, Linda Argote and Ray Reagans.

Center for Organizational Learning, Innovation and Knowledge Workshop
December 3, 2010

New Directions in Organization Science Senior Editors Conference
May 22-23, 2009

The conference was jointly funded by the Center and the Carnegie Bosch Institute for International Management.

Conference on Identity, Innovation and Organizational Learning
June 8-9, 2007

The conference was organized by Aimee Kane (New York University) and Linda Argote (Carnegie Mellon University). The Carnegie Bosch Institute and the CLIK Center co-funded the conference.

Behavior Theory of the Firm
May 26-27, 2006

This influential book, coauthored by Richard M. Cyert and James G. March over 40 years ago, continues to have a major impact today. The conference took stock of the work's impact and suggested promising directions for future research on the behavioral theory of the firm. Because the concept of organizational learning was introduced in the book, it is fitting that the CLIK center hosted the conference, which was co-sponsored by the Carnegie Bosch Institute (CBI). The conference was tied into a special issue of organization science. The co-editors of the special issue were co-organizers of the conference: Mie Augier (Stanford University), Henrich R. Greve (Norwegian School of Management, BI), Dan Levinthal (Wharton), Michael Prietula (Emory University) and Linda Argote (Tepper School of Business). We were delighted that Jim March visited Tepper to participate in the conference. A highlight of the conference was Dean Ken Dunn's announcement that a classroom at the Tepper School of Business would be named in honor of James G. March.