Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning

Item

Title

Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning

Abstract/Description

This paper considers the relation between the exploration of new possibilities and the exploitation of old certainties in organizational learning. It examines some complications in allocating resources between the two, particularly those introduced by the distribution of costs and benefits across time and space, and the effects of ecological interaction. Two general situations involving the development and use of knowledge in organizations are modeled. The first is the case of mutual learning between members of an organization and an organizational code. The second is the case of learning and competitive advantage in competition for primacy. The paper develops an argument that adaptive processes, by refining exploitation more rapidly than exploration, are likely to become effective in the short run but self-destructive in the long run. The possibility that certain common organizational practices ameliorate that tendency is assessed.

Author/creator

March, James G.

Date

1991

In publication

Organization Science

Volume

2

Issue

1

Pages

71-87

Resource type

en Background/Context

Medium

en Print

Background/context type

en Conceptual

Keywords

knowledge and competitive advantage

organizational learning

risk taking

Open access/free-text available

en No

Peer reviewed

en Yes

ISSN

1047-7039

DOI

10.1287/orsc.2.1.71

URL

Official Publisher's Webpage (informsPubsOnline)

Citation

March, J. G. (1991). Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning. Organization Science, 2(1), 71–87. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2.1.71

Cited in

Democratizing Educational Innovation and Improvement: The Policy Contexts of Improvement Research in Education

Item sets

Handbook Chapter 10 Citations

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