Ideology in Vicarious Learning–Related Communication

Jukka Luoma,Juha-Antti Lamberg

doi:10.1287/orsc.2020.1378

Jukka Luoma, Juha-Antti Lamberg

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2020.1378

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Abstract

Organizations often learn vicariously by observing what other organizations do. Our study examines vicarious learning–related communication through which individuals share their observations with other organizational members. Most students and members of present-day organizations would expect that this communication is driven by a prodevelopment logic—that communication serves the purpose of organizational improvement and competitiveness. Our unique historical evidence on learning-related communication over multiple decades shows that the subjective and collective attitude toward prodevelopment communication may be ideologically conditioned. Prodevelopment communication is the norm in capitalist organizations, but competing ideologies may emphasize other goals higher than organizational development. Consequently, increasing challenges to capitalism as the ideological basis of economic organization can have deep impacts on how organizations learn and produce innovations in the future.

Highlights

Vicarious learning, the process of generating new knowledge through observing rather than experiencing (e.g., Bandura 1977), is an important mechanism of organizational adaptation and change
In line with earlier literature emphasizing the effect of organizational design on organizational learning (e.g., Cohen and Levinthal 1990, Ocasio 1997, Schilling and Fang 2014, Ocasio et al 2018), our findings suggest that a structural context, in which there is a small likelihood that prodevelopment communication materializes in concrete organizational changes, discourages such communication—especially the more radical variety
We have studied vicarious learning-related communication practices in an effort to understand why organizations differ in how their members communicate their observational activities to others

Summary

Introduction

The process of generating new knowledge through observing rather than experiencing (e.g., Bandura 1977), is an important mechanism of organizational adaptation and change. Much of the research is premised on the notion that the managers’ task is, first, to establish a set of communication channels that allow relevant information to flow across the organization, enabling collective learning based on what individuals and groups observe or experience (e.g., Narver and Slater 1990, Ocasio 1997, Rulke and Galaskiewicz 2000). The job of managers is to ensure that individuals use formal and informal channels effectively. This involves fostering an organizational culture in which it is safe to speak up (e.g., Detert and Edmondson 2011, Vuori and Huy 2016). What Tarakci et al (2018, p. 1140) call “divergent strategic behavior” is enabled, they suggest, by individuals’ identification with the organization and by their personal interest to move ahead (Burgelman 1991, Floyd and Wooldridge 1997, Mantere 2008)

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