Making Experience Count: The Role of Reflection in Individual Learning
Harvard Business School NOM Unit Working Paper No. 14-093
Harvard Business School Technology & Operations Mgt. Unit Working Paper No. 14-093
37 Pages Posted: 26 Mar 2014 Last revised: 5 Dec 2016
Date Written: June 14, 2016
Abstract
In this paper, we build on research on the microfoundations of strategy and learning processes to study the individual underpinnings of organizational learning. We argue that once an individual has accumulated a certain amount of experience with a task, the benefit of accumulating additional experience is inferior to the benefit of deliberately articulating and codifying the experience accumulated in the past. We explain the superior performance outcomes associated with such deliberate learning efforts using both a cognitive (improved task understanding) and an emotional (increased self-efficacy) mechanism. We study the proposed framework by means of a mixed-method experimental design that combines the reach and relevance of a field experiment with the precision of two laboratory experiments. Our results support the proposed theoretical framework and bear important implications from both a theoretical and practical viewpoint.
Keywords: learning, codification, knowledge, self-efficacy, causal ambiguity, field experiment
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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