Why some teams emphasize learning more than others: Evidence from business unit management teams

Why are some management teams more strongly oriented toward learning than others? The dominant notion in the learning literature is that teams will seek to learn when their outcomes do not live up to their aspirations. In this paper we argue that this perspective overlooks important factors in the social context of a management team that can promote or inhibit an orientation toward learning. In-depth analysis of qualitative and quantitative data obtained from four business unit management teams in a Fortune 100 consumer products company supports this thesis. Specifically, we find that a teams learning orientation is fostered by: (1) an emphasis on ends over means combined with clarity around ends, (2) team norms that tolerate mistakes of commission but sanction mistakes of omission, (3) a sense of uniqueness combined with a strong sense of team efficacy, and (4) cross-boundary interaction facilitated by experientially-broad boundary spanners. These findings both confirm as well as extend theoretical and empirical work on the factors that activate learning and innovation.