Abstract:      Internal learning and external learning have been viewed to be significant knowledge resource for organizational innovation, and they play crucial roles in organization′s transformation process. Due to the huge differences between internal learning and external learning, organizations often confront the dilemma of how to balance these two organizational learning patterns. For example, putting more emphasis on internal learning often leads to competence trap, while over-emphasis on external learning may incur innovation trap. At present, there are two perspectives in terms of balancing these two organizational learning patterns, namely temporal equilibrium and simultaneous equilibrium. Temporal equilibrium hold that internal and external learning are the two ends of organizational learning, and there is an implacable substitution effect between internal and external learning in terms of resource identification and resource application, that is organizations must conduct internal and external learning activities in light of a certain order, and focus on a single learning activity for a special period; And simultaneous equilibrium is inclined to think of the two kinds of learning activities to be two aspects of organizational learning, which can achieve integration and collaboration with each other on the dimensions of both time and space, that is organizations must consider both internal and external learning strategies when distributing organization′s resources. However, few research has focused on how an organization makes choice between the two organizational learning patterns, that is when to adopt temporal equilibrium, when to adopt simultaneous equilibrium, and when to take the two learning patterns into consideration simultaneously?
    In order to identify the dynamic matching rules between internal learning, external learning, and the balance in between and different organizational development stages under different organizational outcome orientation, we incorporated enterprise life cycle into our study, measured organizational outcomes with organizational innovation and organizational performance, and conducted our research based on over 400 R&D enterprises with more than 25 personnel each. These enterprises are mainly located in Shandong, Zhejiang, Guangdong province, and Beijing, Shanghai city, and the industries of these enterprises ranged from new generation of electronic technology software development, electronic communications, new material, mechanical manufacturing to biological medicine. And we explored the effects of learning dynamic balance on different organizational outcomes in R&D enterprises using factor analysis and hierarchical regression methods.
   We found that the balanced learning pattern had positive effect on organizational innovative performance, but had no significant influence on organizational performance. In addition, the balance between internal learning and external learning showed some variances in different development stage of enterprises. Specifically,temporal equilibrium may be a better choice for those enterprises in their initial stage while simultaneous equilibrium was more appropriate for enterprises in growing stage. When it comes to the maturity stage, the two balanced patterns made no difference if organizational innovation was set to be organization′s learning goals, and temporal equilibrium showed its advantage in those enterprises pursuing organizational performance. From the perspective of dynamic evolution, the internal-external learning equilibrium strategies would evolve from tending to one side to laying equal stress on both under the orientation of organizational performance and organizational innovation during the periods from initial stage to growing stage. Nevertheless, during the periods from the growing stage to maturity stage, the evolution of the internal-external learning equilibrium strategies told an opposite story. The internal-external learning equilibrium strategies under organizational performance orientation evolved from laying equal stress on both to tending to one side. And those enterprises in their initial stage were more inclined to adopt internal learning pattern while adopting external learning pattern in their maturity stage. The internal-external learning equilibrium strategies under organizational innovation orientation evolved from laying equal stress on both to flexibly switching, and R&D enterprises should make their choice between different learning patterns according to their development situation and strategic goals. 
    This study contributes to the literature in two ways: first, our study explored the dynamic evolution of temporal equilibrium and simultaneous equilibrium from the perspective of enterprise life cycle, extending the boundaries of the research on internal and external learning to balance perspective, which was different from the previous research examining the effect of one single learning pattern on organizational outcomes; second, our study shed light to how to make the choice among different internal-external learning equilibrium strategies to maximize organizational benefits in different stages of development, clarified the dynamic evolution process of organization′s internal-external learning equilibrium when pursuing different organizational outcomes, and revealed organizational outcome optimization strategies in the context of internal and external learning balance in different developing stages. 
    Our study also provides significant implications for R&D enterprises in China. First, R&D enterprises should reasonably distribute internal and external learning resources according to enterprise′s development stage and its goals, and enterprises must dynamically transform their learning strategies. Second, R&D enterprises should keep a sober understanding of the stages they are at in the enterprise life cycle, and rationally utilize enterprise′s resource by making choices among different learning patterns. For instance, enterprises should put limited resources into a single activity to maximize resource efficiency when in initial stage while laying equal stress on both internal and external learning patterns to achieve collaboration development of internal and external resources in growing stage. And enterprises must dynamically adjust the internal and external equilibrium learning patterns according to their strategy orientation and changes in the external environment. Third, R&D enterprises should not only take the stages they are at into consideration when distributing resources, but also should adjust the balancing patterns in light of organizational goals. Specifically, organizations can adopt focus strategy when distributing resources under organizational innovation and organizational performance orientation in their initial stage, while the strategies of resource distribution evolve from tending to one side to laying equal stress on both in growing stage, and in maturity stage, enterprises must realize flexibly switching when distributing organizational resources in order to maximize the efficiency of redundancy resources. At the same time, the focus of organizations must be shifted from internal learning to external learning, and enterprises should put more stress on new market performance development rather than on performance stability.

Key words:  temporal equilibrium, simultaneous equilibrium, balanced learning, organizational innovation, organizational performance