Authors: Lena E. Bygballe
Inter-organisational learning has received increasing attention from researchers in thefields of organisational theory and industrial networks. Much of the research on suchlearning emphasises relationships with deliberate learning goals. However, knowledgeand learning are involved in the daily practices between firms (Araujo 1998) and suchlearning may contribute just as much to knowledge development as more formal cooperations(Håkansson and Johanson 2001). Hence, this paper will look at learning inregular customer-supplier relationships. According to Håkansson et al. (1999) thiskind of learning is as yet rather unspecified in the literature.The understanding of customer-supplier relationships in this paper is based on studieswithin the industrial network approach focusing on resources in particular (see forexample Håkansson 1993 Håkansson and Snehota 1995 Holmen 2001 Wedin 2001 Håkansson and Waluszewski 2002).Since it is impossible to cover all aspects of the learning phenomenon, we will in thispaper concentrate on the role of routines. Organisational learning has been defined aschanges in routines (Levitt and March 1988), and inter-organisational learning will here be related to changes in the inter-organisational routines established around thejoint use and combination of resources in a customer-supplier relationship.The paper uses a case example of a change in the distribution routine in a customersupplierrelationship. The case is analysed based on themes from the organisationallearning literature and the industrial network approach. The paper contributes as suchto existing literature by providing an understanding of learning in customer-supplierrelationships related to changes in routines and resource interfaces.
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Publish Year: 2004
Conference: Copenhagen, Denmark (2004)