Managing an organizational learning system by aligning stocks and flows of knowledge: an empirical examination of intellectual capital, knowledge management, and business performance

Abstract

<p>There exists great interest in organi zational learning am ong academics and practitioners . However, th e organizational learning lite rature remains a mixture of qualita tive theo ries, descriptive case studies, computer simulations and little emp irical research . The goal of this paper is to adv ance the current state of theory development by taking an emp irical ap proach which consi ders organizational learning as a dyna mic system of behaviours acro ss individual, group and organizational leve ls. A distinction curr ently lacking in the literature is the diff erence between knowledge in organizations that is static (i.e . , remains fixed within one individual or information system) versus knowledge that is dynamic (i.e., moves from one individ ual or information system to the next) . This paper considers knowledge stocks and flows which interact with one another acro ss levels in an overall organizational learning system . A survey instrument was used to test these hyp otheses based on the Strat egic Learning Assess ment Map (S LAM) (Crossan and Hulland, 19 97; Crossan and Bontis, 19 98). The survey was ad ministered to 32 organizations in the mutual fund industry . Approximately 15 individuals representing senior-, middle- and non-management levels responded from each organization resulting in a total sample of 480 respondents . The final regression equation represented a highly explanatory model which also validates the hypothe ses. This research confirms the pre mise that th ere is a positive relat ionship between knowledge stocks at all levels and business performance. Furtherm ore, the proposition that the misalignment of knowledge stocks and flows in an overall organizational learning system is negat ively associ ated with business performance is also confirmed .</p>