The Mutual Impact of Global Strategy and Organizational Learning: Current Themes and Future Directions

• Author: Mark Easterby‐Smith,Jasper J. Hotho,Marjorie A. Lyles
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/gsj.1097
• Date: 01 May 2015
• Published date: 01 May 2015

THE MUTUAL IMPACT OF GLOBAL STRATEGY

AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING:

CURRENT THEMES AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

JASPER J. HOTHO1*, MARJORIE A. LYLES2, and

MARK EASTERBY-SMITH3

1Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark

2Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.A.

3Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster, U.K.

Despite the interest in issues of knowing and learning in the global strategy field, there has

been limited mutual engagement and interaction between the fields of global strategy and

organizational learning. The purpose of our article is to reflect on and articulate how the

mutual exchange of ideas between these fields can be encouraged. To this end, we first conduct

a review of the intersection of the fields of global strategy and organizational learning. We then

present two recommendations regarding how the interaction between the two fields can be

enhanced. Our first recommendation is for global strategy research to adopt a broader notion

of organizational learning. Our second recommendation is for global strategy research to

capitalize on its attention to context in order to inform and enhance organizational learning

theory. We discuss the use of context in a number of common research designs and highlight

how the scope for theoretical contributions back to organizational learning varies with the

research design that is adopted. Copyright © 2015 Strategic Management Society.

INTRODUCTION

A significant part of global strategy and international

management is concerned with issues of knowledge

and learning. These issues cover a range of topics,

from how internationalizing firms gain knowledge

about foreign market environments and learn to

operate across nations, to the challenges associated

with transferring and utilizing knowledge across

borders or the management of international alliances

and joint ventures. Indeed, both the raison d’être of

the multinational enterprise and its (geographical)

boundaries are often presented as functions of

knowledge and learning processes (e.g., Kogut and

Zander, 1992, 1993; Dunning, 1998; Johanson and

Vahlne, 1990; Lyles and Salk, 1996).

In theorizing about such issues, global strategy

scholars often turn to the literatures on organiza-

tional learning and knowing. These streams of litera-

ture infuse our theories on global firms by providing

core concepts and definitions. In addition, advances

in the learning literature occasionally also impact the

global strategy research agenda. Developments in

organizational learning and innovativeapproaches to

knowledge research, such as on organizational ambi-

dexterity, absorptive capacity, or the social facets of

knowledge integration, spur new research effortsthat

enrich our insights into the complex workings of

multinational organizations.

Despite the interest in issues of knowing and

learning in the global strategy field, however, there

has been strikingly little mutual engagement and

interaction between the fields of global strategy and

organizational learning. Our review of the literature,

Keywords: global strategy; organizational learning; context

*Correspondence to: Jasper Hotho, Copenhagen Business

School, Porcelænshaven 24, 2000, Frederiksberg, Denmark.

E-mail: jh.int@cbs.dk

Global Strategy Journal

Global Strat. J., 5: 85–112 (2015)

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/gsj.1097

Copyright © 2015 Strategic Management Society

which we discuss later, shows that, in the global

strategy field, the interest in learning and knowing

remains confined to a limited number of core con-

cepts of organizational learning. At the same time,

the reverse impact of global strategy on the field of

organizational learning has been limited. Few,if any,

insights from global strategy research find their way

into studies on organizational learning.

The limited exchange of ideas between the fields

of organizational learning and global strategy is both

surprising and problematic. Surprising, because glo-

balization has meant that organizational learning

increasingly takes place in organizations that operate

or interact internationally. This implies that insights

from global strategy should be of increased rel-

evance to the field of organizational learning. Prob-

lematic, because the dependence on a limited set of

learning concepts suggests that our understanding of

learning processes and their consequences for global

firms remains incomplete.

With this special issue, we set out to change the

perception of global strategy research as passively

‘borrowing’ advances made in organizational learn-

ing research and to bring the fields of global strategy

and organizational learning closer together. The con-

tributions in this special issue all highlight that

global strategy research can, in distinctive ways,

actively enrich and contribute to our understanding

of organizational knowing and learning. The contri-

butions also illustrate that insights from organiza-

tional learning, beyond established core concepts,

may enrich our understanding of global firms and

their performance. Thus, this special issue illustrates

that the fields of organizational learning and global

strategy can fruitfully inform each other. Therefore,

it is meaningful to consider ways in which the inter-

action between the two fields can be enhanced.

With this positioning article, we intend to set the

scene for the special issue by exploring the recent

literature, by providing new insights from the

articles in this issue, and by proposing fruitful areas

of future research. To this end, we first conduct a

review of the intersection of the fields of global

strategy and organizational learning and assess the

current state of play. We also take the opportunity to

be more forward looking. Specifically, we reflect on

and articulate in more detail how the mutual

exchange of ideas between the fields of global strat-

egy and organizational learning can be encouraged

and the fields can be brought closer together. We end

with two specific recommendations to enhance the

interaction between the fields. Our first recommen-

dation is for global strategy research to adopt a

broader notion of organizational learning and its

antecedents and consequences. Our second recom-

mendation is for global strategy research to capital-

ize on its attention to context in order to inform and

enhance organizational learning theory. We discuss

the use of context in a number of common research

designs and highlight how the scope for theoretical

contributions to organizational learning varies with

the research design that is adopted. We use the

studies included in this special issue to illustrate

these recommendations.

REVIEWING THE INTERSECTION OF

GLOBAL STRATEGY AND

ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING

The aim of our review is to provide a snapshot of

recent work at the intersection of global strategy and

organizational learning. Where do the two fields

intersect and how do insights from one field inform

the other? To this end, we first created a sample of

representative journals that regularly publish work at

the intersection of these two fields. The year 2010 is

significant because it is the year of the GSJ launch

conference that marked the birth of the Global Strat-

egy Journal. We, therefore, decided to focus our

review efforts on work published from 2010 to 2014.

We selected three main journals in the field of

global strategy for inclusion in our sample of jour-

nals: the Global Strategy Journal; the Journal of

International Business Studies; and Management

International Review. We also included several

general management journals that have published

impactful global strategy research in the past,

namely: the Academy of Management Journal; the

Strategic Management Journal; the Journal of Man-

agement Studies; and Organization Science. Again,

our intention was to include journals based within as

well as outside of North America. To represent the

field of organizational learning, we selected Man-

agement Learning, the main journal dedicated to

research on organizational learning and knowing;

Academy of Management Learning & Education;

and Learning Organization.

Using Google Scholar, we then searched the jour-

nals in our sample for global strategy papers that draw

on organizational learning and, conversely, for orga-

nizational learning papers that were informed by

insights from global strategy. To minimize the risk

that relevant studies were overlooked, we then con-

86 J. J. Hotho et al.

Copyright © 2015 Strategic Management Society Global Strat. J., 5: 85–112 (2015)

DOI: 10.1002/gsj.1097