Abstract
Three factors have been identified that affect the rate at which firms learn:
(a) the proficiency of individual workers, (b) the ability of firm members to
leverage knowledge accumulated by others, and (c) the capacity for coordinated
activity inside the organization. Each factor varies with a particular kind of
experience. An increase in cumulative individual experience increases individual
proficiency. An increase in cumulative organizational experience provides
individuals with the opportunity to benefit from knowledge accumulated by
others. An increase in cumulative experience working together promotes more
effective coordination and teamwork. To gain insight into factors responsible
for the learning curve, we examine the contribution of each kind of experience
to performance, while controlling for the impact of the other two. The study
context is a teaching hospital. The task is a total joint replacement procedure
and the performance metric is procedure completion time. We find that each kind
of experience makes a distinct contribution to team performance. We discuss the
implications of our findings for the learning by doing framework in general and
learning in the team context in particular.