From Men and Machines to the Organizational Learning Curve

Guido Fioretti
2009 Social Science Research Network  
Learning curves were first discovered in the aerospace industry, where a large number of items must be assembled with one another in order to build an airplane [41] . This is possibly not a chance, for it has been observed that the slope of organizational learning curves is generally more pronounced in assembling operations (where organizational learning has a prominent role) than in machining operations (where individual learning has a prominent role) [19] [20]. This insight suggests that
more » ... izational learning curves may stem from the coordination of large sets of men and machines. According to this point of view, organizational learning curves reflect a distributed development of patterns of behavior leading to the emergence of routines [28] [38], meant as recurrent but flexible patterns of action [31] [32] [12]. Routines arise spontaneously in both structured environments [11] and informal communities of practice [10] [39] [40] out of repetition of successful coordination schemes. During their development the sequencing of actions is improved, which implies that the required task is accomplished earlier. On the contrary, learning curves disappear if routines are destroyed. For instance, it is known that if production is suspended and subsequently restarted, e.g.
doi:10.2139/ssrn.1524332 fatcat:2yk7emefa5fs5pr5saqzorm7oy