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The purpose of this paper is to review the organizational learning, market orientation and learning orientation concepts, highlight the importance of market knowledge to organizational learning and recommend ways in adopting a market‐based approach to organizational learning.

The extant organizational learning and market orientation literature was reviewed, and the salient points on how adopting a market‐based approach to organizational learning promotes competitive advantage are discussed.

Organizational behavior scholars have devoted a lot attention on the factors and conditions affecting organizational learning. The end outcome, of course, is to improve organizational performance. Marketing scholars, on the other, focused on the effect of market orientation on organizational performance. Regardless of the different perspectives, both disciplines agree that an organization's long‐term survival depends on its ability to generate new knowledge and continuously learn from the external environment.

The paper offers recommendations to practicing managers ways to combine market and learning orientation for organizational learning which can lead to sustained competitive advantage.

The paper provides a fresh perspective on how organizational learning is enhanced by acquiring, disseminating and utilizing market knowledge that is externally focused on customers and competitors.

The topic of organizational learning is populated with many theories and models; many relate to the enduring organizational learning framework consisting of knowledge acquisition, knowledge dissemination, and knowledge use. However, most of the research either emphasizes structural knowledge acquisition and dissemination as a composite construct, or focuses solely on the structural aspect of knowledge acquisition and dissemination. The primary objective of this study is to develop and test a model of organizational learning that incorporates both structural and informal knowledge acquisition and dissemination and as separate processes. The predictors of these processes are also proposed

A model of organizational learning that incorporates both structural and informal knowledge acquisition and dissemination constructs, along with three predictors of these organizational learning constructs were developed and quantitatively tested.

An inference to the research questions and hypotheses suggests that informal knowledge acquisition and dissemination have significant paths to market knowledge use, whereas structural knowledge acquisition and dissemination have, at best, a weak association with market knowledge use. Although the results were based on exploratory analysis, they provide tentative quantitative evidence that informal knowledge processes are at least as important as structural knowledge processes in market‐based organizational learning.

While the hypothesized model did not satisfy the goodness‐of‐fit tests, data‐driven exploratory analysis helped to refine two separate structural and informal models for future testing. The statistical explanation provided and procedures used to remedy the non‐fit issues should help future researchers to deal with structural equation‐modeling issues when similar non‐fit problems arise.

There is a grey area when it comes to learning and organizations, and it is something that goes right to the heart of learning itself. If we use the story of the black swan being discovered as an example, up until that point there was a piece of learning which was that all swans were white – part of ‘swan-ness’ was that it was white. However, that piece of knowledge became invalid when black swans were discovered in Australia. Suddenly, not all swans were white, and swan-ness was about being black or white.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds his/her own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

There is a grey area when it comes to learning and organizations, and it is something that goes right to the heart of learning itself. If we use the story of the black swan being discovered as an example, up until that point there was a piece of learning which was that all swans were white – part of ‘swan-ness’ was that it was white. However, that piece of knowledge became invalid when black swans were discovered in Australia. Suddenly, not all swans were white, and swan-ness was about being black or white.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.