Early steps in learning about organizational learning in customization settings

Abstract

Purpose -This study aims to empirically investigate the role of learning for suppliers of individualized customizations from a communication perspective.Design/methodology/approach -Five companies providing individualized customizations are investigated through an in-depth qualitative approach. The empirical material is based on data from five presentations in one workshop and seven interviews.Findings -Four important categories of communication processes between suppliers and customers that stimulate learning were identified: the identification and confirmation of existing knowledge, the identification of knowledge gaps and the creation of new knowledge, the definition of relations and procedures and evaluation and learning.Practical implications -These findings can help suppliers of individualized customizations become aware of the important role of organizational learning in their day-to-day operations and the value of improving as a learning organization.Originality/value -This cross-disciplinary study brings together organizational learning and customization research. It is a study that focuses on communication in customization tasks as a base for learning.

Mediating Role of Knowledge Management in the Relationship between Organizational Learning and Sustainable Organizational Performance

“…Organizational learning is a collective multilevel process consisting of psychological and social processes involving intuition, interpretation, integration, and institutionalization of knowledge [21][22][23], the transformation of the tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge [12,13,24], and support of knowledge exchange between individuals and groups [11,22,25]. As defined by Fiol and Lyles (1985), organizational learning means the process of improving actions through knowledge and perception [26].…”

Enhancing Supply Chain Capabilities in an ETO Context Through "Lean and Learn"

“…Learning is at the heart of lean (Ballé et al, 2019b). In fact, organizational learning has recently begun to emerge as the missing link to successful lean transformation (Engström and Käkelä, 2019;Powell and Coughlan, 2020b), regardless of the positioning of the customer order penetration point.…”

Editorial

“…One mission of The Learning Organization ( TLO ) is to aid managers, teams and organizations to learn effectively. This special issue of TLO contains two articles that deal with this mission, one by Engström and Käkelä (2019) and the other by Fannoun and Kerins (2019). The paper “Early steps in learning about organizational learning in customizing settings: a communication perspective” (Engström and Käkelä, 2019) raises the importance of organizational learning in day-to-day operation of companies providing customized products and services under the uncertainty of not knowing what to produce in advance.…”

“…How to make a difference through organizational learning This special issue focuses on exploring the question of how to make a difference through organizational learning [1]. There are several approaches responding to this question, such as building innovation capacity by maintaining ambidexterity in organizational learning using bottom-up approach (Brix, 2019), learning through communication processes (Engström and Käkelä, 2019), enhancing organizational learning with software support systems (Fannoun and Kerins, 2019), creating organizational dynamic capabilities through knowing in practice established through microprocesses (Linden et al, 2019), developing a multi-level learning framework (Morland et al, 2019) and regenerating the learning organization (Pedler and Hsu, 2019).…”