On the Determinants of Organizational Forgetting

Guy David and Tanguy Brachet

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2011, vol. 3, issue 3, 100-123

Abstract: Studies of organizational learning and forgetting identify potential channels through which the firm's production experience is lost. These channels have differing implications for efficient resource allocation within the firm, but their relative importance has been ignored to date. We develop a framework for distinguishing the contributions of labor turnover and human capital depreciation to organizational forgetting. We apply our framework to a novel dataset of ambulance companies and their workforce. We find evidence of organizational forgetting, which results from skill decay and turnover effects. The latter has twice the magnitude of the former. (JEL D23, D83, J24, J63)

JEL-codes: D23 D83 J24 J63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
Note: DOI: 10.1257/mic.3.3.100
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

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Working Paper: On the Determinants of Organizational Forgetting (2009)
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