Hoechst challenges received wisdom on organisational learning

How does a major international company learn? In particular, how does a successful international company even discover that it needs to learn to do things differently, and to do different things, rather than relying on its past recipes for success? According to the literature, success tends to be a hindrance to learning, while crises tend to stimulate it by calling into question existing ways of seeing and doing things. The analysis of the far-ranging transformation of Hoechst into Aventis in the years 1994 to 2000 challenges and refines some concepts in the literature on organisational learning. The case illustrates how learning was triggered in a successful organisation without waiting for a crisis, how double-loop learning was achieved through mergers and acquisitions, and how unlearning was managed in divestments. The paper modifies theories on the nature of visions and the role of top managers in creating visions, and it breaks some new ground in the exploration of the role of organisational politics in organisational learning processes.