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Unfit to Learn? How Long View Organizations Adapt to Environmental Jolts

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Author Info
Heugens, P.P.M.A.R.
Zyglidopoulos, S.C. (Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), RSM Erasmus University)
Abstract

Long view organizations have a technical core combining high levels of Woodwardian (1958) technological complexity and Thompsonian (1967) technological intensity. This significantly diminishes their capacity for operational flexibility and strategic adaptation. Little is known about how such organizations manage to learn from rare events. We shed light on this issue by reporting a thirteen-year longitudinal study of a major oil company, tracing its experiences with a socio-political crisis from original preparations to learnings that did not fully materialize until years after the event. We use three alternate templates to interpret the organization’s struggle to maintain its technical core under conditions of fierce contestation by changing constituent groups and dwindling public support: (1) a stakeholder template mapping shifts in the salience of constituent groups that punctuate long-standing negotiated equilibria; (2) a legitimacy template showing migration towards new forms of legitimacy while old forms crumble; and (3) a capability template highlighting how pre-existing stocks of capabilities hinder learning before being supplanted by new ones. These templates are tied together in a set of integrative propositions stating how long view organizations learn from rare events.

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Paper provided by Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam. in its series Research Paper with number ERS-2007-014-ORG Revision_Date: 2009-08-17.

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Date of creation: 28 Mar 2007
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Handle: RePEc:dgr:eureri:300010397

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Related research
Keywords: Organizational learning; Oil industry; Alternate templates; Environmental jolts; Institutional theory; Resource-based view; Stakeholder theory;

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Pursey P. M. A. R. Heugens & Cees B. M. van Riel & Frans A. J. van den Bosch, 2004. "Reputation Management Capabilities as Decision Rules," Journal of Management Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(8), pages 1349-1377, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Joseph Lampel & Jamal Shamsie, 2003. "Capabilities in Motion: New Organizational Forms and the Reshaping of the Hollywood Movie Industry," Journal of Management Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(8), pages 2189-2210, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. David, Paul A., 1994. "Why are institutions the 'carriers of history'?: Path dependence and the evolution of conventions, organizations and institutions," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 205-220, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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