Recognizing a serious lack of research on routinized individual actions and organizational adaptation in the stability-change paradox, we intend to provide an in-depth explanation of the way in which agile methods affect organizational learning in self-managed, team-based organizations, taking a multi-level evolutionary approach. We explore learning in agile organizations by breaking the analysis of organizational routines down into different levels -individual, team and organization -and describing the process of variation, selection and retention of routines at each level. Leveraging on multiple case studies, we discuss how team members learn and gain knowledge, from both direct and indirect experience, and analyze how teams develop conceptual frameworks and interpret those experiences. Finally, we discuss how organizational memory develops and how teams in agile organizations adapt simultaneously within an ecological structure that also comprises the changing environment. Our findings reveal substantial flaws in the capacity of agile methods to foster organizational learning.

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Open Source Software (OSS) has become a strategic asset for a number of reasons, such as short time-to-market software delivery, reduced development and maintenance costs, and its customization capabilities. Therefore, organizations are increasingly becoming OSS adopters, either as a result of a strategic decision or because it is almost unavoidable nowadays, given the fact that most commercial software also relies at some extent in OSS infrastructure. The way in which organizations adopt OSS affects and shapes their businesses. Therefore, knowing the impact of different OSS adoption strategies in the context of an organization may help improving the processes undertaken inside this organization and ultimately pave the road to strategic moves. In this paper, we propose to model OSS adoption strategies using a goal-oriented notation, in which different actors state their objectives and dependencies on each other. These models describe the consequences of adopting one such strategy or another: which are the strategic and operational goals that are supported, which are the resources that emerge, etc. The models rely on an OSS ontology, built upon a systematic literature review, which comprises the activities and resources that characterise these strategies. Different OSS adoption strategy models arrange these ontology elements in diverse ways. In order to assess which is the OSS adoption strategy that better fits the organization needs, the notion of model coverage is introduced, which allows to measure the degree of concordance among every strategy with the model of the organization by comparing the respective models. The approach is illustrated with an example of application in a big telecommunications company.

Smart Agriculture and 4.0 technologies have brought several benefits to agricultural small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Nonetheless, the penetration of such digital technologies is still poor and slow. This study addresses the issue and provides some insights on the reasons related to the still limited adoption of 4.0 technologies within agricultural SMEs. Authors do not simply focus on the adoption per se, but rather devote attention to the SMEs owners/managers' subjective perception of the opportunity behind the technology adoption, and of the incentives or constraints given by the external environment as well as the organizational capabilities as embedded in the owners/managers' skills and organizational routines. Authors analyze data collected by surveying 96 Italian agricultural SMEs owners/managers, and empirically confirm the relevance of managerial capabilities, managerial cognition, and managerial perception of the external environment for the adoption of 4.0 technologies in agricultural SMEs. The results of this research support the conclusion that organizational capabilities related to the search for evidence-based knowledge by the SME's decision-maker are crucial for the technology's adoption. In addition, we show the statistical significance relevance of the managerial perception of technological usefulness and of the availability of a supporting business environment either in the form of professional services or institutional support, on the technology's adoption. The article ends by discussing the results and highlighting relevant managerial implications.

Originally developed for software development, Agile approaches are increasingly adopted by organizations that seek flexibility in the face of rapid change. However, little attention has been paid to the potential negative consequences of the implementation of Agile in large-scale settings. This article presents the results of a multi-site study of a multinational telecom company over five years during its implementation of Agile practices in the context of large-scale software development. The article points to six potential pitfalls of implementing such practices that may negatively influence individual learning, ideation, and exploitation capabilities. It offers advice on how to avoid these consequences in large, established firms.