This study investigates the effects of information technology (IT) on exploration and exploitation in organizational learning (OL). We use qualitative evidence from previously published case studies of a single organization to extend an earlier computational model of organizational learning (March 1991) by introducing IT-enabled learning mechanisms: communication technology (e-mail), knowledge repositories of best practices, and groupware. We find that each of these IT-enabled learning mechanisms enable capabilities that have a distinct effect on the exploration and exploitation learning dynamics in the organization. We also find that this effect is dependent on organizational and environmental conditions, as well as on the interaction effects between the various mechanisms when used in combination with one another. We explore the implications of our results for the use of IT to support organizational learning.

We link two influential organizational learning models—performance feedback and experiential learning—to advance hypotheses that help explain how organizations’ learning from their own and others’ experience is conditioned by their aspiration-performance feedback. Our focus is on learning from failure; this kind of learning is essential to organizational learning and adaptation, and a necessary complement to studies of learning from success. Our analysis of U.S. Class 1 freight railroads’ accident costs from 1975 to 2001 shows that when a railroad’s accident rate deviates from aspiration levels, the railroad benefits less from its own operating and accident experience and more from other railroads’ operating and accident experiences. These findings support the idea that performance near aspirations fosters local search and exploitive learning, while performance away from aspirations stimulates nonlocal search and exploration, providing a foundation for constructing more-integrated models of organizational learning and change.