The Hierarchy Myopia of Organizational Learning

Abstract

Previous studies have been interested in how to maximize both the efficiency and the effectiveness of organizational learning. On the flipside, some studies have investigated the critical barriers to learning. We suggest organizational hierarchy as another cause and theoretically explore how it can deter learning performance. Specifically, we argue that the configuration of structure determines a prevalent form of learning method in an organization to consequently affect its learning performance. Using simulation modeling, we show that non-hierarchical organizations may be a better learning environment than hierarchical organizations. We also show that the contextual factors, such as problem complexity and member regrouping, may affect the base-line result. This study subsequently calls for further attention be paid to the key issues concerning the hierarchy and organization learning performance.