ORGANIZATIONAL INNOVATION AND PARADIGM SHIFT

COMPARING THE LEARNING PROCESS OF TWO CHINESE STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES (SOEs)

抄録

Knowledge in an organization often consists of aggregates of complex organizational routines that cannot be efficiently transferred or unlearned. It has been structured, systematized and embedded within the organization after a long period of operations. Therefore organizational innovation can be hard to achieve. Similar problems persist in the Chinese State-owned Enterprises (SOEs); they face difficulty in shifting from a planned economy paradigm to a market economy paradigm. This research investigates the learning processes of two parallel case studies which involved two SOEs and their joint ventures (JVs) with different foreign partners. The aims of the JVs were not just to gain profits, but more importantly to transfer new knowledge to the parent companies. The research reveals a two-stage learning process - learning within JV organizations and the transfer of learning to the parent companies. With this finding this article explains how the two-stage learning process could take place.