Balancing Exploration and Exploitation Through Structural Design: The Isolation of Subgroups and Organizational Learning

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fang, Christina; Lee, Jeho; Schilling, Melissa A.
• 署名单位: New York University; Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST)
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.1090.0468
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 625-642
• 关键词: interpersonal networks; Exploration and exploitation; Organizational learning; diffusion

摘要

The classic trade-off between exploration and exploitation in organizational learning has attracted vigorous attention by researchers over the last two decades. Despite this attention, however, the question of how firms can better maintain the balance of exploration and exploitation remains unresolved. Drawing on a wide range of research on population and organization structure, we argue that an organization divided into semi-isolated subgroups may help strike this balance. We simulate such an organization, systematically varying the interaction pattern between individuals to explore how the degree of subgroup isolation and intergroup connectivity influences organizational learning. We also test this model with a range of contingency variables highlighted in the management research. We find that moderate levels of cross-group linking lead to the highest equilibrium performance by enabling superior ideas to diffuse across groups without reducing organizational diversity too quickly. This finding is remarkably resilient to a wide range of variance in factors such as problem complexity, environmental dynamism, and personnel turnover.