Decentralization, Social Networks, and Organizational Learning
Emily Erikson and
Sampsa Samila
No 12-01, DRUID Working Papers from DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies
Abstract:
Research on the exploration and exploitation of knowledge in organizations suggests that the autonomy of subsidiaries or units encourages innovation. However, that same autonomy potentially discourages the exploitation of innovations through inter-unit communication – suggesting a tradeoff between innovation, associated with exploration, and communication, associated with exploitation. Analyzing data on the operational decisions of captains in the English East India Company, we find that high unit autonomy encourages the transfer of information via social networks, whereas centralization depresses the use of social networks. Further, the information transferred via social networks does make its way into the formal knowledge base of the firm.
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-ict, nep-knm, nep-net and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://wp.druid.dk/wp/20120001.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aal:abbswp:12-01
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in DRUID Working Papers from DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Keld Laursen ().