The link between learning orientation and knowledge generation to foster innovation in Mexican firms

The overall aim of this paper is to identify the relationship of a learning orientated organization and the sources of knowledge generation in Mexican firms, services and manufacturing, and how these impact in their innovative capability. The innovative performance of organizations depends undoubtedly on how successful they are in the generation of knowledge and how efficient and committed in distributing this knowledge among their members. Organizations with a clear sense of direction and vision (focus) are able to search for new knowledge and facilitates the organization’s change. To validate this phenomenon an explanatory study was designed Introduction A firm is a dynamic entity which actively interacts with its environment, and reshapes the environment, and even itself, through the process of knowledge creation is able to innovate in its processes, products or services (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). If an organization wants to survive in and lead an industry, it must continuously differentiate itself from its competitors by creating competitive advantages through adaptive capabilities or innovative strategies (Reeves and Deimler, 2011). A firm’s innovative performance depends on how successful it is in appropriating knowledge or ideas identified as useful in external sources, so that knowledge generation is fundamental to a company’s development and to successfully building and sustaining a competitive advantage, since it is the base of innovation (Laursen and Salter, 2006). Organizations have the capacity to learn and acquire new knowledge, which Kogut and Zander (1992) refer to as a company’s combinative capability and Cohen and Levinthal (1990) articulate as absorptive capacity. Organizations are not just knowledge warehouses, their knowledge base can be produced and reproduced within a social framework. Knowledge generation is defined as the specific activities and initiatives undertaken by organizations to increase their organizational knowledge (Davenport and Prusak, 2001). These activities involve external acquisitions of knowledge and internal creation of this intangible resource being highly dependent upon the organization’s culture and management style, in fact, a culture that promotes intensive communication, accepts new ideas, and is prepared to explore new processes and activities favors the generation of knowledge. It may be stimulated through non-hierarchical organizational structures, an active general management, and by motivating employees to innovate and learn lessons that allow them to obtain new and better knowledge (Zapata, Rialp and Rialp, 2009). Knowledge generation is mainly an institutionalized activity, so each organization must be able to establish its own creative routines and human intervention to make this process possible, be learning oriented institution where having a share vision, commitment to learn and open mindedness are key drivers (Griese, Pick and Kleinaltenkamp, 2012). The challenge is to build systems that collect the learning processes acquired during projects and ongoing activities, to capture that knowledge in a database or document, and then to spread it throughout the entire organization (Grant, 2000; Argote and Spektor, 2011) to be useful for innovation strategies. In this sense, there are many studies discussing how knowledge management is positively related to innovation and performance (e.g. Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Soo et al., 2002; Lee and Choi, 2003; Zelaya-Zamora and Senoo, 2013); but the impact of knowledge generation on the firm innovation capabilities is still unexplored (Griese, Pick and Kleinaltenkamp, 2012). The overall aim and contribution of the present research is to identify the link between learning orientation and knowledge generation and the impact of this relationship in the innovation capacity of Mexican firms, specifically services and manufacturing. The study also sought explanation of how organizational factors and personal qualifications are relevant. This paper is structured as follows: Section 2 exposes the development of a conceptual framework related to learning orientation, knowledge generation and its impact in innovation capabilities; Section 3 presents the methods used to conduct the empirical study; Section 4 discusses several preliminary results and puts forward some conclusions. Conceptual background and hypothesis The present study posits that learning-oriented organizations are highly willing to generate knowledge which will result in new products or services. Learning orientation has been described as the adoption of a basic learning process and linked to the development of new knowledge in the organization. This learning orientation is required to assimilate, adapt and exploit the transferred knowledge (Jiménez-Jiménez, Martínez-Costa and Sanz-Valle, 2014). Learning orientation is conceptualized as a basic attitude towards learning, i.e. the organizational and managerial characteristics that facilitate the organizational learning process (Real, Roldán and Leal, 2014). Hult, Hurley and Knight (2004) state that learning orientation occurs especially at the level of corporate culture and the relationship between learning orientation and firm performance can be mediated by other variables that would impact directly on business results. Similarly, Suliyanto and Rahab (2012) demonstrate that the learning organization cannot directly improve the organization’s performance but rather that it must pass through other variables that may intervene between organizational learning and business performance. In this study, the relationship of learning orientation and knowledge generation is moderated by organizational elements and individual skills. For knowledge acquisition process, organizations need to possess organizational capabilities to deploy resources (Dierickx and Cool, 1989, Teece et al., 1997). Zelaya-Zamora and Senoo (2013:107) expose that knowledge creation capability is dependent on the combination of managerial influences and organizational resources. Figure 1 shows a conceptual model of these relationships. Figure 1: The relationships of learning orientation, knowledge generation and innovativeness Source: Own elaboration Learning orientation and knowledge generation Theorists argue that knowledge is the distinctive resource of the firm (Barney, 1991; Grant 1996; Davenport and Prusak, 2001). The strategic approach based on knowledge identifies the generation and application of knowledge as fundamental bases of the firm (Kogut and Zander 1992; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Foss, 1996; and Grant, 1996). The knowledge can be then retained so that it exhibits some persistence over time (Argote and Spektor, 2011). A clear sense of direction and vision (focus) helps the organization to search for new knowledge and improves the organization’s change readiness when new learning occurs (Crossan, Lane and White, 1999). For the present study, learning orientation is a group of organizational values and norms that promote the creation of knowledge. Among these values are what Baker and Sinkula (1999) expose as the commitment that top management has to support a culture that fosters learning as one of its main values (Garvin, 2003). Another value is open-mindedness to assimilate new knowledge and adapt to new ways to do things. Finally, shared vision (Senge, 1990) which gives meaning to the firm’s everyday tasks and defines the type of knowledge it must seek and create. Learning orientation, as a cultural value, is an antecedent to the organizational learning and knowledge-creation process that facilitates inventiveness (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990). All successful organizations create and use knowledge as a fundamental tool as organizations interact with their environment, absorb information, make informed decisions and carry out actions based on the combination of this knowledge and their experiences, values and rules. All of these are activities that make up the knowledge generation process in organizations (Nonaka and Toyama, 2005). For Grant (2000), knowledge generation involves three main activities: a) Creation of internal knowledge, knowledge is created through the dynamic interaction between individuals and/or between individuals and their environment, rather than an individual working alone (Nonaka, Tomaya and Nagata, 2000:3); b) Learning through action, all learning takes place in the human mind in an individual way: learning of its members or by the new members who have no prior knowledge of the organization (Grant, 1996:112), and c) Acquisition of external knowledge, this occurs when tacit knowledge is shared with suppliers and customers, where the company interacts with other organizations (Nonaka, 1994; Inkpen, 1996; Nonaka, Toyama, and Nagata, 2000), and when the employees attend courses and seminars (Zander and Zander, 2005). Zapata and Pineda (2015) in an exploratory study in Mexican firms identified that the internal creation of knowledge occurs primarily in meetings that take place within the company equally for firms operating in manufacturing and services sectors, followed by employee self-directed learning has been more popular for manufacturing firms. Attending courses is less relevant for the creation of knowledge by manufacturing firms. With respect to external knowledge acquisition, customer experience is the main source for knowledge generation in Mexican firms under study. Outsourcing and acquisition of information systems are others important activities to generate knowledge. H1: A firm learning orientation positively influences knowledge generation Organizational factors and individual qualifications Sun and Anderson (2010) expose that although individuals may have differing cognitive abilities and processing speeds, the outcome of any individual learning for the organization is dependent on the organizational context where the learning takes place. In that sense knowledge generation is highly dependen