组织学习视角行业惯例的演化过程案例研究

A case study of the evolution process of industrial routines from the perspective of organizational learning

本研究关注从传统农业技术行业到现代农业物联网行业的转型,选择组织学习视角、采用案例研究方法对转型过程中行业主导企业和跟随企业的认知和行动倾向演化进行研究,揭示组织惯例的演化过程机理并构建演化过程模型。研究得出:行业惯例的演化主要经历主导企业组织惯例的演化、行业跟随企业组织惯例的演化以及新行业惯例的形成三个阶段;组织学习是促使行业惯例以及行业中个体企业的组织惯例实现演化的关键,其中主导企业依赖试错学习实现主动式演化,而跟随企业依赖效仿学习实现被动推动式演化;尽管行业惯例演化过程中不同类型的企业依赖于不同的学习模式,但组织惯例演化的根本均在于通过参与者的有效沟通与互动形成新的共同理解和一致性行动。

The rapid globalization and development of network technologies have been increasing the dynamic of the environment where firms exist and also facilitating the development of the"Internet+Industry"mode.As a result,a dramatic change in traditional industries and an evolution of industrial routines have occurred.Only through changes could these industries be able to obtain continuous development.Firms within these industries have to break up existing routines and create new ones.There are organizational routines and industrial routines.The former can be defined as an repetitive,recognizable patterns of interdependent actions,carried out by multiple actors;while the latter represents commonly recognized behavior rules and regulations within an industry which are always set up through a process of resources integration,and repetitive communication and exchange,by firms,especially these active ones.When confronting with the dynamic environment,firms need to recreate their organizational routines to obtain new competition advantages.Similarly,industries need to renew their industrial routines to seek a new direction for resource allocation and a new opportunity for further development,and create a new future.Therefore,it is necessary to address the issue of how industrial routines evolve based on the evolution of organizational routines within an industry.Existing research has paid much attention to the definition,evolution and effects of organizational routines and also has realized the importance of industrial routines and their evolution.However,there are still some research gaps existing.For example,how do industrial routines evolve?Or how the evolution of organizational routines may facilitate that of the industrial routines?Although researchers have defined industrial routines and analyzed their characteristics,they still have not made a consistent cognition on industrial routines.Particularly,little attention has been paid to the relationship between organizational routines of firms in an industry and the industrial routine.In addition,some researchers have realized the important role of organizational learning in the evolution of organizational and industrial routines,they have not answered the question of how.Existing studies focus on the self-change mechanism of routines and regard self-change as the basic driver for evolution of routines.Though some mention that organizational learning is the key for self-change of routines and then for their evolution,little attention has been paid to how organizational learning may affect the evolution of routines or what effects organizational learning may produce.Following the existing research and advocating the point that the evolution of participants′organizational routines in an industry may drive that of industrial routines and organizational learning is the fundamental factor for self-change of organizational routines and consequently for the evolution of organizational and industrial routines,this research further addresses the question of how.It adopts an interpretive and exploratory case study on the transformation of the traditional agricultural technologies industry to modern agricultural internet industry and explores the cognition and behavior tendency evolution of both the leader and follower in the industry,namely organizational routines,by adopting the case study method from the perspective of organizational learning.It aims to explore how different modes of learning,imitation learning and trial-and-error learning,affect the evolution of organizational routines,and uncover the evolution process of industrial routines by setting up a process model for industrial evolution.Top Cloud-Agri Technology Co.,Ltd.(TPYN)which firstly transformed itself from an agricultural technology supplier to a modern agricultural service offer,was selected as the leader in agricultural technologies industry;while firm A who imitated the activities and concept of TPYN in the transformation was selected as the follower.Over one year was spent in collecting data from TPYN and firm A,through approaches of semi-structured interviews,archival data,and observation;and the data was analyzed through a five-step process before a framework showing how industrial routines evolved was finally set up.The results show that:the evolution of industrial routines go through a process of three phases:the organizational routines evolution of the leader,the organizational routines evolution of industry followers,and the formation of industrial routines;regarding organizational learning as an important factor to promote the evolution of organizational and industrial routines,the industrial leader relies on trial and error learning as a goal-oriented problem-solving mode to play an active pulling role in the evolution of its routines,while the industrial follower relies on imitating learning as a kind of action-oriented self-enhancement mode to play a passive pushing role in the evolution of its routines;although the industrial leader and follower adopt different learning modes,imitation learning or trial-and-error learning,they both depends on communication and interaction to establish new common understanding and cohesive action.This research,which attempts to explore the evolution of industrial routines from the perspective of organizational learning,may contribute to existing theories of organizational and industrial routines.More specifically,based on existing research on the definition,the self-change mechanism and evolution process of organizational routines,it further explores how industrial routines evolve and set up a three-phase process framework of evolution;in assistance with existing research on effects of organizational learning on routines,it further explores how organizational learning affects the evolution of organizational and industrial routines,and finds that the leader and follower may rely on imitation learning or trial-and-error learning to make their routines changed.Meanwhile,this research may bring some suggestions for managers:firstly,the important role of organizational learning in the evolution of routines may remind managers paying more attention to the capability of learning.It is necessary to improve the capability of employees in understanding and applying professional knowledge through training and internal communication,and help them renew their knowledge to better finish their tasks,establish common understanding,set up consistent behaviors and even change their existing cognition and behavior tendency.By doing so,existing organizational routines could be changed and new routines could be created.Secondly,managers should adopt different learning modes according to the position of their firms in the industry and the objectives to make the routines evolved.Those who adopt goal-oriented problem-solving mode of trial-and-error learning may be able to actively make their routines evolved and get a new opportunity for further development and even become the leader of the industry;while those who adopt the action-oriented self-enhancement mode of imitation learning may become a follower.Finally,the evolution of only one or two leaders in an industry is unable to make the whole industry changed,so leaders should unite all participants to integrate resources of the whole industry to move it forward.