Learning from one's own experience: continuation and organizational change in two East German firms

Abstract

This paper compares and considers the processes of reorganization within two East German firms. How certain institutional environments in each case have a constraining or enabling effect on specific modes of organizational learning will be discussed. In the reorganization process of both companies three phases can be distinguished, which we call structuralist, empirical learning and constructivist. However, the amount learned from one's own experience differs in breadth and intensity in each phase and in each case.