Organizational Learning and Competitive Advantage

'[I}n this volume, contributors from the fields of both strategic management and organizational behaviour have been brought together to explore the relationship between organizational learning and competitive advantage...In their editorial introduction, Edmonson and Moingeon trace changes within the fields of strategy and organizational development that have encouraged a more integrative approach.

On the strategy side, the emergence of the "resource view of the firm" has drawn attention to the importance of firm-specific resources including knowledge and how it is acquired, as sources of competitive advantage.

On the other hand, organizational development practitioners have become increasingly interested in relating their traditional tasks more firmly to strategic business issues and concerns.

The topic of organizational learning can thus be seen as a bridge, which is the intention of this volume to begin constructing, between these two fields...The papers presented in this book offer a rich variety of concepts, frameworks and provovative ideas on organizational learning and its strategic implications.In addition, the theoretical presentations are often supported by reports of the results of original research in a number of companies' - Management Learning 'This book takes an important first step towards integrating theories of competitive advantage and. ..organizational learning, a rapprochement which can come none too soon for the management practitioner' - Peter Senge, Director of the Center for Organizational Learning, MIT Sloan School of Management, USA Organizations need to develop learning strategies to survive and develop in increasingly uncertain and changing markets.

In this book, researchers from Europe and the United States explore theories of strategic management and organizational behaviour to establish a link between learning processes and competitive advantage, within a variety of organizational settings.

The diverse, multidisciplinary approach takes an important step towards developing a new integrative theory of management.