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This paper aims to present the results from a case study that investigated interorganizational learning in a buyer and seller relationship in the context of the maritime industry. This examination emphasized unraveling how the buyer and seller in the case study interacted and transferred knowledge when using a new business model that relied on servitization. Furthermore, this paper also addresses and discusses work practices, and the relationship between intra- and interorganizational learning.

A case study entailing the introduction of digital technology and a new business model into the maritime industry was used as an empirical example of interorganizational learning. The case study was conducted over a period of over one year and focused on a buyer of freight ships and a seller of servitized technology used on the ships. The organizations involved were the ships, the shipowner’s office and the ship engine supplier. The primary data acquisition methods comprised semi-structured interviews and observations.

The case identified interorganizational learning within the organizations at the individual, group and organizational levels, but only a few learning signs could be viewed as bidirectional interorganizational learning that can create knowledge and competitive advantages for the organizations. This is explained by the interorganizational learning context and the organizations’ motivation for learning at a strategic level.

This paper addresses an identified need for empirical studies on how interorganizational learning unfolds within organizations and connects to intraorganizational learning. Interorganizational learning studies often examine partnerships and joint ventures, in which partners have entered into these relationships with learning as a specific goal. By choosing a case in which interorganizational collaboration is anchored in operational matters, the study demonstrates the importance of motivation and agenda when entering into partnerships, concerning how inter- and intraorganizational learning develops within organizations. Furthermore, approaching these levels from an interrelated and practice-oriented perspective challenges established success criteria for interorganizational learning.

The purpose of this study is to consolidate the existing research on interorganizational projects and to explore how organizations learn by closely examining multilevel learning, that is, organizational and interorganizational learning.

This article adopts a single case study approach, examining the Islamabad–Rawalpindi Metro project in Pakistan, with data consisting of interview results and archival data. An inductive approach is used for data analysis.

An empirically grounded learning model was developed based on an interorganizational project following eight lessons: capacity building, personality traits of leadership, working procedures, impeccable planning and implementation, involvement of stakeholders, design compatibility, investigation of underground services, conditions and maintenance of databases, and conceive rational timelines. These lessons learned were classified into three categories: (1) organizational capacity, (2) organizational embeddedness and (3) collective awareness.

This paper develops a novel learning model that can deepen our understanding of the practices and processes involved in multilevel learning. This study contributes to and extends the literature on organizational and interorganizational learning by studying an interorganizational setting.

This paper aims to analyze the effects of enabling management control systems (MCSs) and relational capabilities (interorganizational learning and coordination) on conflict management in innovation ecosystems.

Shedding light on relational governance, structural equation modeling (symmetric analysis) and qualitative comparative fuzzy-set analysis (asymmetric analysis) were applied to a sample of 164 Brazilian firms associated with science and technology parks (STPs), a specific type of innovation ecosystem.

The results of the symmetric analysis showed that enabling MCSs have a direct and positive effect on conflict management, as well indirect effects through interorganizational learning and coordination. The results of the asymmetric analysis indicated four solutions to promote high levels of conflict management, with enabling MCS solutions standing out, as they are present in the majority of cases in the sample.

Interorganizational conflict in innovation ecosystems are inevitable, but the previous literature is inconclusive about how the interrelation between MCS and relational capabilities can foster the management of these conflicts. By providing evidence on the predictors and solutions that lead to high levels of conflict management, this study presents valuable insights into how firms and STPs can mutually promote organizational and relational benefits throughout the innovation activities developed among those involved in innovation ecosystems.

Although interorganizational learning has attracted substantial attention, research about its effects on green innovation is still rare. Combining theories of organizational learning and absorptive capacity, this study explores the relationships among interorganizational learning, green knowledge integration capability (GKIC) and green innovation (GI), and analyzes the moderating role of green absorptive capacity (GAC). Based on resource-based and ambidexterity theories, this study focuses on vertical exploitative (VEL) and lateral explorative learning (LEL). This study expands the research of GI by proposing two different interorganizational learning mechanisms and uncovering the intricate relationship between them and GI.

Based on a sample of 203 Chinese manufacturing firms, the authors used a hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrap method to test the theoretical framework and research hypotheses of this paper.

Results show that VEL and LEL have positive effects on GI. GKIC partially mediates the relationship between VEL and GI and completely mediates the relationship between LEL and GI. Moreover, GAC plays a moderating role between LEL and GKIC and moderates the effect of LEL on GI via GKIC, such that the effect is stronger when GAC increases. However, it does not moderate the relationship between VEL and GKIC.

First, founded on resource-based and ambidexterity theories, this study considers two dimensions of interorganizational learning, VEL and LEL. Second, by testing the mediating role of GKIC, the authors provide a theoretical lens to understand the relationship between interorganizational learning and GI. Third, by examining boundary conditions of GAC, the authors enrich organizational learning and absorptive capacity theory in the context of green development.

Relationship learning is viewed as an important factor in enhancing competitiveness and an important determinant of profitability in relationships. Prior studies have acknowledged the positive effects of interorganizational learning on performance, but the performance measures applied have varied. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between interorganizational learning and different types of performance. The paper also goes beyond direct effects by investigating the moderating effects of different research designs.

This paper applies a meta-analytic approach to systematically analyze 21 independent studies (N = 4,618) to reveal the relationship between interorganizational learning and performance.

The findings indicate that interorganizational learning is an important predictor of performance, and that the effects of interorganizational learning on performance differ in magnitude under different research conditions.

The paper focuses on interorganizational learning, and during the data collection, some related topics were excluded from the data search to retain the focus on learning.

The study evinces the breadth of the field of interorganizational learning and how different research designs affect research results. Moreover, this meta-analysis indicates the need for greater clarity when defining the concepts used in studies and for definitions of the concepts applied in the field of interorganizational learning to be unified.

This study is the first to meta-analytically synthesize literature on interorganizational learning. It also illuminates new perspectives for future studies within this field.

The purpose of this paper is to define co-exploitation, co-exploration, and alliance ambidexterity from the perspective of organizational learning; to analyze how knowledge bases, structural arrangements, and control mechanisms of R&D alliances influence co-exploitation and co-exploration; and to discuss how to achieve alliance ambidexterity by managing paradoxes around knowledge bases, structural arrangements, and control mechanisms.

This is a conceptual paper focussing on how to balance exploitation and exploration at the alliance level through managing three paradoxes of cooperation: similarity vs complementarity, integration vs modularity, and contracts vs trust.

While technological similarity, structural integration, and contracts are more likely to promote co-exploitation, technological complementarity, structural modularity, and trust are more likely to facilitate co-exploration. Alliance ambidexterity, which is beneficial for alliance performance, derives from either the combination of technological complementarity, structural integration, and contracts, or the combination of technological similarity, structural modularity, and trust temporally.

Researchers should analyze the possibility of building alliance ambidexterity in other types of interorganizational relationships, and find other possible antecedents of interorganizational learning.

Managers should not simply treat R&D alliances as one of exploratory interorganizational relationships, but pay equal attention to co-exploitation and co-exploration. To achieve this balance, practitioners should combine technological complementarity with structural integration and contracts, or integrate technological similarity with structural modularity and trust.

This paper is one of the first contributions that analyze how an R&D alliance could gain its ambidexterity through the management of nested cooperation paradoxes.

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on knowledge transfer in interorganizational partnerships. The aim is to assess the advances in this field by addressing the questions: What factors impact knowledge transfer in interorganizational partnerships? How do these factors interact with each other?

The study reports results of a literature review conducted in ten top journals between 2000 and 2017 in the fields of strategy and innovation studies.

The review identifies three overarching themes, which were organized according to 14 research questions. The first theme discusses knowledge in itself and elaborates on aspects of its attributes. The second theme presents the factors that influence interorganizational knowledge transfer at the macroeconomic, interorganizational, organizational and individual levels. The third theme focuses on the consequences, namely, effectiveness and organizational performance.

Partnership managers may improve and adjust contracts, structures, processes and routines, as well as build support mechanisms and incentives to guarantee effectiveness in knowledge transfer in partnerships.

The study proposes a novel theoretical framework that links antecedents, process and outcomes of knowledge transfer in interorganizational partnerships, while also identifying aspects that are either less well researched or contested and thereby suggesting directions for future research.

Reflecting on 25 years of collaborating in action learning research initiatives in interorganizational settings, the authors have framed three key theoretical contributions: (1) a formula for action learning in networks, (2) the notion of action learning research, and (3) the application of action learning research in networks. This chapter reviews how each of these three key theoretical contributions emerged as insights and were developed over time through three large-scale funded interorganizational action learning projects. The chapter provides insights into the process of theorizing as the authors show how these frameworks emerged through inquiry into experience and were consolidated through collaborative action as practice-based research, research as practice, and practice as research toward designed-in impact.

How beneficial is interorganizational learning for research and development (R&D) consortium performance, and what factors drive the learning effectiveness? To answer these underexplored topics, this study aims to investigate the relationship between interorganizational learning and consortium performance and the moderating impact of social capital embedded in the consortia on the relationship.

Based on the literature review conducted, interorganizational learning is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct represented by exploitative and exploratory learning at the consortium level. R&D consortium performance is operationalized as a combination of technological and business performance, corresponding, respectively, to its collective outputs and individual outcomes. This study hypothesizes focusing on technological performance while analyzing business performance for the robustness check.

The hypotheses are tested in an original sample of 218 R&D consortium projects in which Korean ventures participated as focal partners. The results show that both exploitative and exploratory learnings are positively related to R&D consortium performance, and social capital accrued in the consortia leverages the advantages of exploratory learning for technological performance and exploitative learning for business performance.

This study adds new evidence to the literature, suggesting the performing-by-partnering mechanism of R&D consortia is contingent on the social capital that institutionalizes the common learning platform in which the partners interoperate. In practical respects, the combination of interorganizational learning and social capital deserves to be regarded as strategic elements for the value-cocreating consortia, requiring the true exchange of knowledge across partners.