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A contextual theory of organizational learning from failures and successes: A study of acquisition completion in the global newspaper industry, 1981–2008
Author(s) -
Muehlfeld Katrin,
Rao Sahib Padma,
Van Witteloostuijn Arjen
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
strategic management journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 11.035
H-Index - 286
eISSN - 1097-0266
pISSN - 0143-2095
DOI - 10.1002/smj.1954
Subject(s) - experiential learning , newspaper , context (archaeology) , organizational learning , variance (accounting) , knowledge management , outcome (game theory) , database transaction , psychology , marketing , business , economics , computer science , microeconomics , mathematics education , advertising , accounting , paleontology , programming language , biology
This study develops and tests theory about the context‐specificity and outcome‐dependence of experiential learning in acquisition processes. First, we investigate whether learning from experience gained in different acquisition contexts is limited to influencing subsequent outcomes of same‐context transactions. Second, we analyze whether learning patterns in response to prior successes and failures differ across acquisition contexts, depending on two properties of these contexts—the degree of structural variance and the level of stimulation of deliberate learning. Learning is assessed with respect to an underexplored organizational goal variable in acquisitions: completion of a publicly announced transaction. An analysis of 4,973 acquisition attempts in the newspaper industry in 1981–2008 largely supports our theory. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.