Limited Rationality, Formal Organizational Rules, and Organizational Learning (OL)

Alfred Kieser (), Nikolaus Beck and Risto Tainio
Additional contact information
Alfred Kieser: Lehrstuhl für ABWL und Organisation, Postal: L 13, 15, D-68131 Mannheim
Nikolaus Beck: Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Postal: L 13, 15, D-68131 Mannheim
Risto Tainio: Helsinki School of Economics,, Postal: Helsinki, Finland

No 98-02, Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications from Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim

Abstract: In spite of a broad agreement among researchers in organizational theory on the importance of rules for the functioning of organizations, most theories of OL neglect or tend to underestimate the role of organizational rules in processes of OL. However, there is one important exception: James G. March, his cooperators and his students. He and Richard Cyert (1963) developed a theory of OL long before this concept became a management fashion. And since that then he and his group have continuously revised and developed this theory. These theories provide fundamental insights into processes of OL, although, so far, they have not yet received adequate recognition in the more popular management literature. These theories assume that complex organizations learn by the ways in which individuals experiment, form inferences and code the lessons of history into rules. OL is based on routines. It is history-dependent and target-oriented. To a large extent OL depends on the relation between observed organizational outcomes and the aspirations set for these outcomes (Levitt and March, 1988: 320). In this article we try to give an introduction into the theories on learning in the March school and link it with our own conceptual and empirical work.

Pages: 38 pages
Date: 1998-01-10
Note: Financial Support from the Daimler-Benz-Foundation, Ladenburg, is gratefully acknowledged. Financial support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, SFB 504, at the University of Mannheim, is gratefully acknowledged.
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sfb504.uni-mannheim.de/publications/dp98-02.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:xrs:sfbmaa:98-02

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications from Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim Contact information at EDIRC., Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Carsten Schmidt ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).