Science Research Management ›› 2019, Vol. 40 ›› Issue (7): 257-266.
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Xie Maohua, Wujisiguleng
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Technological innovation is the core power of enterprise development. Will it improve corporate performance? At present, there are conflicting views in the theoretical circle: some scholars’ research found that technological innovation contributes to the improvement of company performance, while other scholars’ research shows that technological innovation has no obvious effect on company performance or inhibits the improvement of company performance. We believe that the reason for the disagreement is that neglecting technological innovation is essentially a dynamic, continuous and complex process, especially ignoring the intermediary role of organizational learning in the entire technological innovation. As a new theory of enterprise management, organizational learning plays an important role in enterprise management. Davis and Bingham (2012) have proposed that the theory of organizational learning should be studied from a "dynamic" perspective, and the concept of "organizational learning sequence " should be proposed. Through the investigation of the behavior of many enterprises, they found that the organizational learning with independent process would change with a certain scale, and the regular change could be summarized as the learning sequence of "Seeding Learning Sequence" and "Soloing LearningSequence".The former refers to the experience learning followed by reference learning, while the latter refers to continuous experience learning. According to the existing research, Weijiang et al. further classified the change of organizational learning method, and added "Consulting Learning Sequence" and "Enhancing Learning Sequence" organizational learning method. The former refers to the interweaving of reference learning into experiential learning, and the latter refers to the learning method of learning after experience learning. As for the regulating effect of organizational learning sequence on corporate technology innovation and corporate performance, a small number of scholars have also studied it. Langley et al. emphasized that in the process of enterprise technology innovation, we should pay attention to the study and development process of enterprise technology innovation.Bresman’s research also found that in the field of pharmaceutical enterprises, more organizational learning should be carried out to promote the output effect of technological innovation. Based on the sequence of organizational learning, we use the method of longitudinal comparative case study to analyze the ways of promoting the performance of different organizational learning sequence in the process oftechnological innovation. First of all, this paper attempts to answer two questions about " Why is the impact of technological innovation on enterprise performance paradoxical " and "how different technological innovation affects company performance under different organizational learning sequences". Secondly, the longitudinal case study is adopted to identify the causal relationship between constructs by combing and confirming the time sequence of key events. For this reason, we combine the relevant theoretical background above and select two traditional equipment manufacturing enterprises as typical cases for longitudinal comparative analysis. According to the characteristics of technological innovation of enterprises, they are divided into different stages. The organizational learning status, technological innovation status and company performance of each stage are analyzed in detail, and the similarities and differences between the two are compared. In the light of their differences, the organizational learning is explored. The influence mechanism of different methods on enterprise technology innovation and company performance finally constructs the process theory framework of organizational learning sequences, answering different organizational learning methods that enterprises should adopt at different stages of growth, and technological innovation can bring performance to enterprises. The results showed that all learning methods can promote the role of technological innovation in improving corporate performance during different growth stage of different organizations, but the four kinds of organizational learning methods play a different role in the process of technological innovation,thus having different effects on enterprise performance. "Seeding Learning Sequence" may have more advantages to the enterprise in the exploration stage and growth stage, however, there is no much significance for enterprises in the stage of rapid development that adopt "Consulting Learning Sequence" and "Enhancing Learning Sequence" in the process of technological innovation to improve the company’s performance. Therefore, in the process of enterprise development, we should select different organizational learning sequence to match technological innovation according to different stages of development,so as to improve the performance of enterprises. Finally,the theoretical framework model of technological innovation and organizational learning sequence on corporate performance is established on this basis. From the perspective of organizational learning theory, it explores the impact of technological innovation on company performance, solves the paradox of technological innovation and company performance, and expands the relevant theories of technological innovation. The paper takes the timeline as the guide and adopts the method of longitudinal analysis. From the perspective of organizational learning theory, it studies the role of organizational learning in the process of technological innovation and the influence of different learning methods on company performance, and depicts the process picture of organizational learning sequence. Studying the impact of technological innovation on company performance provides ideas and expands the relevant theories of technological innovation. The research conclusion also has guiding significance to enriching the related theories of organizational learning and guiding enterprises to carry out scientific innovation so as to improve the performance. The paper refines the organizational learning theory according to the learning sequence, and analyzes its impact on the company’s technological innovation, enriching the organizational learning theory. Previous studies on organizational learning mainly focused on the exploration of the essence and main characteristics of organizational learning, with emphasis on the importance of organizational learning, or only divided specific learning process (direct learning and indirect learning), and rarely divided and analyzed organizational learning as an intermediary factor. The paper applies organizational learning theory, not only studies the mechanism of technological innovation on corporate performance, but also further deepens the differences in organizational learning theories and learning styles. It provides a more comprehensive perspective for the organization learning to be carried out in accordancewith the learning sequence, analyzes the choice of different learning sequence in technological innovation of enterprises in different growth stages, and explores the influence of different learning methods on corporate performance in different stages, which greatly enriches the relevant theories of organization learning.
Key words: technological innovation, organizational learning, dynamics, case study
Xie Maohua, Wujisiguleng. Organizational learning order, technological innovation and company performance:A comparative analysis based on two cases[J]. Science Research Management, 2019, 40(7): 257-266.
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