Research On Influence Mechanism Of Organizational Unlearning And Evaluation Of Unlearning Capability

As a particular model of organizational learning,organizational unlearning has been paid increasing attention by scholars and practitioners in recent years.Organization unlearning,which emphasizes the separation and discarding of old knowledge,plays an irreplaceable role in the process of promoting organizational innovation and innovational performance.Therefore,it is very important to learn how to encourage organizations to carry out organizational unlearning,and how to improve the ability of organizational unlearning.The existing research on organizational unlearning is mainly focused on exploring the consequences of organizational unlearning and does not shed light on the influential mechanism of organizational unlearning.Based on the theories of organizational unlearning,strategic management and knowledge governance,this paper analyzes the influence mechanism of organizational unlearning by theoretical and empirical analysis.This study not only enriches the research of organizational unlearning,but also provides theoretical and practical guidance for the organization to effectively carry out organizational unlearning and improve organizational unlearning capability.This study is divided into four parts.The first part is to summarize the core concepts,relevant theories and relevant research results;the second part is to build the influence mechanism of organizational unlearning;the third part is to empirically test the influence mechanism model of organizational unlearning,verify the hypothesis and conduct a discussion;the fourth part is to construct the evaluation system and model of organizational unlearning capability,and propose the improvement strategy of organizational unlearning capability.The main results are as follows:(1)This study defined organizational unlearning.Since organizational unlearning was put forward,scholars focused on its conception,consequences and boundary factors from different perspectives.However,there is not an accurate and uniform conception for organizational unlearning.Based on existing research,this study gives a comprehensive conception of organizational unlearning,and analyzes its characteristics,process and effects.The definition of organizational unlearning provides us a theoretical basis for future research.(2)This study built an influential model of organizational unlearning.Organizational dynamic ability,knowledge governance and environmental dynamics have been considered as the antecedents of organizational unlearning.Regression analysis was used to examine the research model.We found that organizational dynamic capability(including environmental insight capability,change and renewal capability,technical flexibility capability and organizational flexibility capability)has a positive effect on organizational unlearning;formal knowledge governance and informal knowledge governance both have positive effects on organizational unlearning;environmental dynamics also can promote organizational unlearning.Environmental dynamics was considered as a moderating factor influencing the effect of knowledge governance and organizational unlearning.The results showed that environmental dynamics positively moderated the positive effect of formal knowledge governance on organizational unlearning,and negatively moderated the positive effect of informal knowledge governance on organizational unlearning.(3)This study built an evaluation system of organizational unlearning capability and evaluation model.The existing research has not paid attention on construction of evaluation system of organizational unlearning capability,but the evaluation model of organizational unlearning capability is important for organizations to evaluate organizational unlearning capability effectively and to carry out purposeful and targeted unlearning.This study built the evaluation index system of organizational unlearning capability,including knowledge separation capability,knowledge application capability,knowledge discarding capability,organizational dynamic capability and organizational auxiliary capability.Among those factors,knowledge separation capability is composed of knowledge separation speed,knowledge separation intensity and knowledge separation sustainability;knowledge utilization capability is composed of knowledge reorganization capability,optimization process ability and knowledge sharing ability;knowledge discarding ability is composed of technical change degree,management change degree and the change of staff behavior;dynamic capability is composed of environment perception capability and learning absorption capability.The auxiliary ability is composed of leadership support,cultural influence and education training.Based on the research of the evaluation system of organizational unlearning capability,we built the evaluation model of organizational unlearning capability using fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method and entropy weighting method.The evaluation model is convenient to evaluate the unlearning capability of the enterprise and to determine the situation of the unlearning capability.It provides us the opportunities to improve the organizational unlearning capability.(4)This study put forward some strategies to improve the organization unlearning capability.Based on the evaluation model of organizational unlearning capability,this study evaluates the unlearning capability of one enterprise,and puts forward the strategies of improving organizational unlearning capability from the perspectives of knowledge governance,dynamic capability and organizational auxiliary capability.For example: strengthening knowledge governance,improving the capability of separating,using and discarding knowledge;maintaining organizational dynamics and integrating innovation and unlearning;enhancing leadership commitment and motivation and shaping unlearning culture;strengthening human capital construction and improving organizational unlearning.