Views and Practices on Inter-organizational Learning in Innovation Networks (Track 2, Session 5)
Author(s) :
Hannele Lampela (Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland)
Hannu K�rkk�inen (Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland)
Abstract : In recent years, effective learning and knowledge generation have been acknowledged to have an important effect on successful innovations and innovative processes in organizations. Organizing in networks is challenging for the participants on both organizational and individual level for many reasons, particularly from knowledge creation and sharing point of view. The knowledge creation, information gathering and sharing activities within innovation networks have a great importance, since they help the organizations to learn about and from each others. The organization�s learning capabilities also have crucial importance in generating innovations. Learning also enables the organizations for example to renew themselves, and to keep up with competition. Furthermore, learning faster and more effectively than the competitors may be the only source of sustainable competitive advantage in competitive markets. As the amount of actors in a network grows and the changes in the environment become faster, the complexity of the innovation process increases significantly. This, in turn, increases the need for effective learning. For example in industries which have been described as highly information intensive and where changes in the operating environment are fast, the ability to learn effectively in a network can be very important. In this paper, the aim is to study inter-organizational learning in innovation networks. We will particularly concentrate on different currently important or increasingly important approaches and views on organizational learning which are particularly relevant from the standpoint of networked innovation. We aim to analyze the different learning approaches and evaluate their suitability in various situations and conditions of innovation networks in particular. Also some preliminary ideas on practices to support effective learning in innovation networks in the case of each view are proposed.

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