Building Organizational Learning Capability: A Blueprint for Learning Architects

Abstract

Abstract Consider the following scenario. You are a member of your company’s top management team. Performance indicators suggest that the firm’s sales performance in your home country is softening due to market maturity and stiff competition from overseas competitors. After years of downsizing and cost­cutting efforts, it’s clear the company can only grow by increasing its presence in emerging markets like China and India. Active participation in these emerging economies could help the company gain access to huge and rapidly growing markets in Asia, establish low-cost manufacturing bases, and serve existing customers globally. Unfortunately, when several of your company’s businesses started to establish manufacturing and sales operations through strategic alliances and wholly owned subsidiaries in China and India, they met with various degrees of success. While some found the right partners and negotiated the appropriate terms of cooperation, others ran into difficulty right from the beginning. Moreover, even though it isn’t difficult to build state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in China and India, transferring the management and technical know-how necessary to run these facilities from your home country has been quite challenging.