Organizational Learning in Asia: Issues and Challenges

By Jacky Hong, Robin Snell and Chris Rowley

Organizational Learning in Asia: Issues and Challenges addresses important and pressing questions on organizational learning in Asia in both domestic and foreign firms—those that have been forgotten in the mainstream literature or that remain unasked and unanswered.

Three sets of questions are especially salient. First, how can firms operating in, or from, Asia detect, respect, recognize, and honor different cultural stances on suggestion-giving, knowledge sharing, and standardization while also challenging accepted wisdom, avoiding risks and mistakes, and voicing disagreement?

Second, how can such firms facilitate local experimentation and innovation by providing a common knowledge platform in a non-totalitarian manner? Finally, how can such forums promote ‘reverse’ knowledge transfer from subsidiary to headquarters and across subsidiaries in different nations by avoiding ethnocentricity, cultivating local talent, and building a group of 'communities of practice' across cultural and status boundaries?

• Addresses important and pressing questions about organizational learning in Asia for both domestic and foreign firms
• Explores how such firms can facilitate local experimentation and innovation
• Promotes ‘reverse’ knowledge transfer from subsidiary, to headquarters, and across subsidiaries in different nations

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Release date: Mar 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9780128095805

Jacky Hong

Jacky Hong is an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Macau, Macau. He received his PhD from Lancaster University. Since early 2000, he has been researching and publishing papers on the broader themes of organizational learning and knowledge management in the Asian context in journals such as Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies, Journal of World Business, Journal of International Management, International Business Review and others. He is on the editorial board of Journal World Business, Management Learning and other journals.

Book preview

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Part I

Introduction and Background

Outline

Chapter 1 Introduction: Organizational Learning in Context, Not Isolation

Chapter 2 Organizational Learning in the Context of Institutional Voids: Government Interventionism and Business Networks in Asia

Chapter 1

Introduction

Organizational Learning in Context, Not Isolation

J. Hong¹, R.S. Snell² and C. Rowley³,⁴,⁵,⁶,⁷,    ¹University of Macau, Macau S.A.R., China,    ²Lingnan University, Hong Kong S.A.R., China,    ³University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom,    ⁴University of London, London, United Kingdom,    ⁵Korea University, Seoul, Korea,    ⁶Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia,    ⁷Nottingham University, Nottingham, United Kingdom

Abstract

We set the scene by reviewing the theoretical state of play in organizational learning theory before homing in on Asia as both a challenge to established perspectives and as an exciting, multifaceted test-bed for diverse new approaches and interpretations.

Keywords

Organizational Learning; universalism; SECI; multinational corporations

Debates on Organizational Learning: Context-Free or Context-Specific?

After more than half-a-century’s existence (Cyert & March, 1963) and the publication of several review articles (Easterby-Smith, Crossan & Nicolini, 2000; Easterby-Smith, 1997; Huber, 1991) and research handbooks (Dierkes, Antal, Child & Nonaka, 2001; Easterby-Smith & Lyles, 2003, 2011), the concept of organizational learning remains as multifaceted and contested as ever. There are diverse definitions and interpretations (Easterby-Smith & Araujo, 1999), which focus on particular features and theoretical dimensions (Bell, Whitwell & Lukas, 2002). For example, organizations have variously been conceived as learning if there are changes in their knowledge (Argote, 2011, p. 440), routines (Levitt & March, 1988), social practices (Brown & Duguid, 1991), cultural values and norms (Cook & Yanow, 1993), or strategic decisions (Zollo, 2009). Organizational learning has also been placed in the context of learning and human resource management practices (Rowley & Poon, 2011).

Despite the diversity of conceptual definitions of organizational learning, it appears that the associated research agenda has been driven by assumptions of universalism (Easterby-Smith, 1998). Such assumptions are typical of much business and management literature, and the need to question such dominant assumptions has been a major motivation for this book. Indeed, our concern to challenge the appropriateness of universalism for the field of organizational learning can be located within broader debates on convergence–divergence (see Rowley & Benson, 2002; Rowley, Bae, Horak & Bacouel-Jenjens, 2016; Rowley, 1997), and globalization (see Rowley & Oh, 2016; Rowley & Yukongdi, 2016). Until recently, normative, ‘best practice’ models of organizational learning (Argyris & Schon, 1978; Crossan, Lane & White, 1999) have thus been assumed to be context-free and universally applicable, regardless of national or cultural contexts. This universalist assumption has come under criticism by scholars who adopt an opposing, conceptualist perspective, on account of overlooking ‘the implicit assumptions about a particular setting, its meaning and quality’ (Örtenbald, 2013, p. 7).

A case in point is the famous SECI (socialization, externalization, combination and internalization) model by Nonaka and his co-authors (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka, Toyama & Hirata, 2008; Nonaka, 1994). The principles and practices of SECI are proclaimed to ‘have a more general application to any organization, either economic or social, private or public, manufacturing or service, in the coming age despite their field of activities as well as geographical and cultural location’ (Nonaka, 1994, p. 34). Yet scholars have reservations about SECI’s transferability to cultural contexts outside Japan, its country of origin (Gourlay, 2006; Gueldenberg & Helting, 2007; Weir & Hutchings, 2005). The critics’ main concern has been that in the absence of the culturally embedded assumptions and values that serve as enabling factors (Glisby & Holden, 2003), attempts to transfer and replicate the SECI model overseas are likely to encounter severe difficulties and strong resistance (Hong, Snell & Mak, 2014; Hong, 2012).

In the past decade, a contextual perspective on organizational learning has emerged, arguing that organizational learning may take different forms, depending on its specific cultural and institutional context (Easterby-Smith, 1998; Geppert, 1996; Örtenbald, 2013). Drawing from the assumption that learning is ‘embedded in specific social contexts’ (Geppert, 1996, p. 252) and is carried out by individual agents (Saka-Helmhout, 2009), this contextual perspective holds that the processes through which organizations learn are socially constructed and shaped by the surrounding institutional environment. Again, this is building on a long lineage (see the overview in Rowley, 1997). Associated studies of the transferability of multinational firms’ organizational learning systems have analyzed the constraints caused by differences in institutional conditions between the home and host countries (Hong, Easterby-Smith & Snell, 2006a; Lam, 2003). These studies have identified some key contextual factors that support or hinder the adoption of particular organizational learning systems and practices, including cultural values and assumptions, labor laws and labor market conditions, supplier proximity, materials availability and quality, and even architectural features and spatial constraints (Hong et al., 2006a, 2006b; Snell & Hong, 2011).

Asia as a Research Context

Asia provides a fertile setting for challenging theoretical orthodoxy and refining the mainstream concepts in management studies (Meyer, 2006) due to its ‘context-specific conditions’ (Bruton & Lau, 2008, p. 636). In the field of organizational and managerial learning, two parallel streams of studies have investigated the impact of contextual factors in Asia on multinational corporations (MNCs). One stream has focused on foreign-invested MNCs, the other has investigated MNCs from Asian developing countries. Notably, the key organizational learning-related issues and challenges faced by these two types of MNC appear to be different (Snell & Hong, 2011). We shall discuss the two streams in turn.

In recent decades, MNCs from developed countries have established their presence in Asia for the purpose of acquiring critical resources and expanding their market coverage through foreign direct investments and joint ventures in host countries (Tsang, 2001). However, when seeking to transfer technology, knowledge, and organizational learning systems to Asia, developed country MNCs have often encountered significant institutional and cultural barriers. Barriers to such transfer typically identified by expatriate managers from developed country MNCs include frontline employees’ passivity and reluctance to assume responsibility (Child & Markoczy, 1993), their deference to upper authorities regarding decision making (Hong et al., 2006b), and their reluctance to share knowledge with members of outgroups (Michailova & Hutchings, 2006). Developed country MNCs have thus faced local pressures to adapt their organizational learning systems and practices to the distinctive cultural and institutional environments in Asia.

In the past decade, we have also witnessed the emergence of MNCs headquartered in Asian developing countries, such as China and India (Williamson, Ramamurti, Fleury & Fleury, 2013). These firms have been labeled ‘Dragon Multinationals’ (Mathews, 2006), but we shall refer to them as emerging Asia MNCs. Studies reveal that such firms have followed distinctive organizational learning strategies to capitalize on core competences when expanding abroad. Mathews (2006) developed the 3Ls (linkage, leverage, and learning) framework to characterize such strategies, based on the use of complex interfirm linkages designed to achieve strategic advantage. Luo and Tung (2007) proposed a ‘springboard’ perspective to portray how emerging Asia MNCs have been able to acquire strategic resources from other developed country MNCs to overcome their market and institutional constraints at home. A common research theme has investigated how emerging Asia MNCs have been able to distill, harness, and leverage the idiosyncratic resources and capabilities shaped by their home-country contexts, in combination with the core competences of their alliance partners, for the purpose of overseas entry and expansion.

Overview of Contributions to this Volume

With these considerations and nuances in mind, this edited volume seeks to address some important and pressing questions about organizational learning in Asia for both domestic and foreign firms which have been forgotten in the mainstream literature, or which remain unasked and unanswered. To do this, our nine chapters are organized in four main parts (see Table 1.1).

Table 1.1

Summary of chapters and their contributions