In view of the size, complexity and diversity of the field it is hard enough to come up with an encapsulation of the current state of OLKM, and even more difficult to be definitive about future directions. However, undaunted by the task, we offer here some speculation about future directions. These are based on three main sources: an informal review of current citation patterns for recently-published papers; an overview of the predictions from authors who have contributed to this Handbook; and the results of our own discussions as we have developed the Handbook.
Our review of recent papers used ISI citation data for papers published since 2006. In this relatively short period of time, a few papers have already received over a hundred citations, and many have received over thirty. We can identify four main clusters of papers, around which recent energy has been focused, and hence which may be indicative of future trends. The strongest interest is around the drivers of corporate performance and competitive advantage. Two very influential papers (Teece, 2007; Simon, Hitt, and Ireland, 2007) examine the inner mechanisms whereby dynamic capabilities can sustain corporate performance, and Rai, Patnakayuni, and Seth (2006) and Hult et al. (2006) both look at the way knowledge can be managed in supply chains to drive competitive advantage. Other examples of well-cited papers in this area include Krishnan et al. (2006) on trust and alliance performance, and Zellmer-Bruhn and Gibson (2006) on the relation between team learning and performance in multinationals.
A second major theme is around the generation of enterprise and innovation. Zahra, Sapienza, and Davidsson (2006) provide a review and research agenda on the links between dynamic capabilities and enterprise, and Rothaermel and Hess (2007) examine how they link to innovation. Thorpe et al. (2005) look at the role of knowledge in small- and medium-sized firms. More recently both Alegre and Chiva (2008) and Liao et al. (2008) have looked at the links between organizational learning and innovation.
Our third theme is about learning and knowledge transfer between organizations. Several authors have written influential papers which both critique and develop the idea of absorptive capacity (Jansen et al., 2005; Lane et al., 2006; Todorova and Durisin, 2007). Others have conceptualized and examined the process of inter-organizational knowledge transfer (Paulraj et al., 2008; Easterby-Smith, Lyles, and Tsang, 2008; and van Wijk et al., 2008), and a third sub-group have focused on the way that learning takes place between clusters and networks of firms to produce competitive advantage (Dyer and Hatch, 2006; Lavie, 2006; Giuliani, 2007).
A fourth theme takes a more strategic perspective with examination of the interplay between exploration and exploitation especially within alliance relationships (Gupta et al., 2007; Lavie and Rosenkopf, 2006), and the way that capabilities can be built through alliances (Kale and Singh, 2007). The compromise position between exploration and exploitation is expressed in the idea of ambidexterity (Raisch and Birkinshaw, 2008; O’Reilly and Tushman, 2008).
In sum, there is strong evidence that organizational learning can impact the performance of a firm, but the problem is that this relationship may not hold at all times, and in all settings. Although we are aware of the existence of intervening variables, it is still not entirely clear which ones contribute the most, and under what circumstances, to organizational learning and performance. Consequently, this is likely to remain a research priority for a long time.
Related to this, we recognize that there is a relationship between learning and the exploitation or utilization of knowledge; yet we do not know the constructs that influence knowledge or learning utilization. Few studies address how knowledge is stored, when it is used and the timeliness of that usage. Examining real-time learning poses many difficulties beyond access to organizations and data. Exceptions exist such as those studies that evaluate how experience affects future organizational strategies. We want to understand organizational learning, but lack research on actual learning processes and knowledge. This, as several of the chapter authors imply, suggests that we should consider learning and knowledge as the dependent variables. Hence we might look at how social networks, communities of practice, and power structures influence knowledge and learning.
The quick and wide-spread development of emerging economies opens the door for future research addressing localized knowledge, knowledge trajectories, and outsourcing of knowledge, possibly through open innovation. Several recent papers have addressed the issues of globalization (Tsui et al., 2007; Sapienza et al., 2006), and it is due to the growing importance of cross-national learning and knowledge transfer that we have included a separate part of the Handbook on these issues. Future studies will need to consider how to build capacity for global learning, how knowledge is created, the uses of technology for knowledge transfer, the impact of social and organizational identity, and the processes of inter-organizational knowledge transfer.