Antecedents and consequence of organizational unlearning: Evidence from China

On the shoulders of giants: uncovering key themes of organizational unlearning research in mainstream management journals

“…SEM is also helpful to study the influence of mediating and moderating variables that affect the relationship of unlearning with other variables. For example, Lyu et al (2020) used firm size as a moderating variable to Note: Only empirical articles were considered for analysis in this table ¶ The total number of studies can exceed the qualified empirical studies (as mentioned in Appendix 1 Table 19) because an article may have used multiple methodology for collection of data and/or analysis of results. For example, data about a case organization can be accumulated using secondary sources (annual reports, magazines, website) as well as interviews and/or observation by the researcher † This can denote the figure of respondents who initially agreed to provide data to researcher or initial target sample size, depending on the information available investigate the linkage of unlearning with environmental turbulence and entrepreneurial orientation in Chinese manufacturing firms undergoing radical innovation.…”

“…During the new product development process, Akgün et al (2006) suggested certain factors like creating a sense of urgency, team crisis, team anxiety, and avoiding groupthink to enhance OU. The enablers of unlearning during radical innovation include environmental turbulence, entrepreneurial orientation (Lyu et al 2020), creating awareness, temporal and spatial freedom, and error-forgiving culture , and team reflexivity and team stress (Lee and Sukoco 2011) The classic learning curve model asserts that knowledge accumulated from prior learning does not depreciate. Lately, researchers have empirically examined the element of organizational forgetting (OF) in the learning process, thereby developing a new approach incorporating both aspects, i.e., learning and forgetting (Agrawal and Muthulingam 2015;Argote 2013;Carmona and Grönlund 1998;Causholli 2016;Kim and Seo 2009;Thompson 2007).…”

“…This cluster consists of 10 articles and talks about the role of unlearning during innovation, particularly in terms of new product development (NPD) and radical innovation. The main contributors to this cluster are Takeuchi and Nonaka (1986), Akgün et al (2006), Akgün et al (2007b), Lee and Sukoco (2011), Wang et al (2013), Yang et al (2014), andLyu et al (2020). Perhaps, this is the only cluster that analyzes team-level unlearning.…”

“…Unlearning the conventional practices, routines, and competencies can also stimulate the process of radical innovation as it is based on entirely new technology (Escrig et al 2019;Lyu et al 2020;Yang et al 2014). Sandberg and Aarikka-Stenroos (2014) enlist radical innovation barriers like restrictive mindsets, lack of competencies, and unsupportive organizational culture.…”

“…2010; Mariano and Casey 2015;Rebernik and Širec 2007), and knowledge transfer in multinational enterprises (Tsang 2008(Tsang , 2017Wang et al 2017;Yildiz and Fey 2010;Zahra et al 2011), have begun to receive increased attention. A plethora of other studies have also explored the relationship of unlearning with topics like new product development (Akgün et al 2006(Akgün et al , 2007bLyu et al 2020), environmental knowledge (Martelo-Landroguez et al 2018), and quality of health care (Cegarra-Navarro et al 2011;Cegarra-Navarro et al 2014a, b;Rushmer and Davies 2004). Overall, these efforts endeavor to "loosening up unlearning and forgetting's enclosed system and connecting the field to other research streams such as change management, innovation, learning" (Klammer and Gueldenberg 2019: p. 874).…”