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  • 2020
  • Working Paper
  • HBS Working Paper Series

Team Learning and Superior Firm Performance: A Meso-Level Perspective on Dynamic Capabilities

By: Jean-François Harvey, Henrik Bresman, Amy C. Edmondson and Gary P. Pisano
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:51 
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Abstract

This paper proposes a team-based, meso-level perspective on dynamic capabilities. We argue that team-learning routines constitute a critical link between managerial cognition and organization-level processes of sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring. We draw from the literature to develop four categories based on the orientation (exploration/exploitation) and locus (internal/external) of learning in teams: reflexive, experimental, contextual, and vicarious learning. We integrate these categories into the dynamic capabilities framework, propose that their relative importance differs along the sensing-seizing-reconfiguring pathway, and assess their impact on innovation and strategic change. Our framework contributes by adding a meso lens to research on dynamic capabilities, thereby offering an explanation for how senior managers’ cognitive abilities can produce superior firm performance, through learning in teams.

Keywords

Dynamic Capabilities; Innovation; Strategic Change; Teams; Team Learning; Groups And Teams; Learning; Innovation And Invention; Change; Performance

Citation

Harvey, Jean-François, Henrik Bresman, Amy C. Edmondson, and Gary P. Pisano. "Team Learning and Superior Firm Performance: A Meso-Level Perspective on Dynamic Capabilities." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-059, December 2018. (Revised January 2020.)
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About The Authors

Amy C. Edmondson

Technology and Operations Management
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Gary P. Pisano

Technology and Operations Management
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  • Variety of Innovation in Global Value Chains By: Giulio Buciuni and Gary P. Pisano
  • Pal’s Sudden Service—Scaling an Organizational Model to Drive Growth By: Francesca Gino, Gary P. Pisano and Alexander Rohe
  • Scaling Well by Doing Good: Motivating Talent at b.good By: Francesca Gino, Gary P. Pisano and Alexander Rohe
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