Reading between the lines: Learning as a process between organizational context and individuals’ proclivities

European Management Journal (2014) 32, 147– 154

Adam Smith Business School journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/emj

Reading between the lines: Learning as a process between organizational context and individualsÕ proclivities Stefano Brusoni *, Nicole A. Rosenkranz ETH Zurich, Department of Management, Technology and Economics, Chair of Technology and Innovation Management, Switzerland, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA

KEYWORDS Identity theory; Attention; Multi-level construct; Organizational learning; Exploitation; Exploration

Summary Critical firm-level results, such as strategic renewal and sustainable firm performance are recurrently attributed to organizational learning. Yet, many scholars claim that this firm-level phenomenon has not been sufficiently broken down and connected with lower level activities. Consequently, this paper intends to focus on two nascent conceptual bridges for linking macro- and micro-level structures and processes in the organizational learning literature: (organizational) identity and (organizational) attention. We first briefly review these two approaches, trying to show their complementarities. We shall argue that research on identity and attention is delivering results useful to establish suitable foundations to the organizational learning literature; that both can be scaled up from the individual level to do justice to the multilevel nature of learning and finally that both lend themselves to the analysis of the seemingly unsolvable tension between exploitation and exploration in organizational learning. ª 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction Critical firm-level results, such as strategic renewal and sustainable firm performance are recurrently attributed to organizational learning. The sustained research interest in the organizational learning phenomenon has led to the development of several theoretical positions from the clas* Corresponding author. at: ETH Zurich, Department of Management, Technology, and Economics, Chair of Technology and Innovation Management, Switzerland. Tel.: +41 446320542. E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Brusoni).

sic works of the theory of the firm by Cyert and March (1963) to the understanding of dynamic capabilities (Hodgkinson & Healey, 2011; Teece, 2007). Even beyond academic research, practitioners and executive education draw on the concepts of the Ôlearning organizationÕ to define what allows firms to successfully maneuver and redefine themselves in response to environmental and industry changes. Yet, many strategy scholars claim that this firm-level phenomenon has not been sufficiently broken down and connected with lower level activities. The quest for adequate micro-foundations to organizational learning processes has

0263-2373/$ - see front matter ª 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2013.04.011

148 a long and distinguished history, particularly in the organizational behavioral field. Scholars have highlighted cognitive, behavioral and psychological antecedents to organizational learning on the micro level (Esterby-Smith, Crossan, & Nicolini, 2000; Fiol & Lyles, 1985; Hodgkinson & Healey, 2011; Levinthal & Rerup, 2006). Yet, we still miss a coherent picture to define how psychological and cognitive factors affect individual learning behavior and how individual level learning relates to and interacts with higher level learning (Nag, Corley, & Gioia, 2007). Such a quest is not only an intellectual endeavor. Theoretical consistency is a logical precondition to the development of a proper identification strategy, without which, cause-effect relationships remain ambiguous and hence lack robust prove that the conceptual underpinnings management scholars have developed over the past 30 years, actually have empirical traction; and, ideally, some effect on economic performance. Consequently, this paper intends to focus on two nascent conceptual bridges for linking macro- and micro-level structures and processes in the organizational learning literature: (organizational) identity and (organizational) attention. We first briefly review these two approaches, trying to show their complementarities. We shall argue that research on identity and attention is delivering results useful to establish suitable foundations to the organizational learning literature; that both can be scaled up from the individual level to do justice to the multilevel nature of learning and finally that both lend themselves to the analysis of the seemingly unsolvable tension between exploitation and exploration in organizational learning.

Organizational learning: social identity foundations Social identity has acquired the status of a key concept in research, allowing organizational studies to approach questions of multi-level nature, in particular those that deal with the behavior of organizational members (Gioia, Schultz, & Corley, 2000). This is explained by the fact that much of what determines identity on the individual level is affected by the relation to others (e.g. group memberships, organizational employee, etc.), impacting a personÕs set of beliefs, values and expected behavior (Corley & Gioia, 2004; Gioia, Price, Hamilton, & Thomas, 2010). As Crossan et al. highlight, ‘‘the nature or texture of the domain within which individual and organizations operate, and from which they extract data, is crucial in understanding the interpretive process’’ (1999, p. 528). This interpretive process is central to the ability and direction learning will take at the individual level. For the individual this means both the identification with the organization as well as sub-contexts within the organization. The concept of role identities captures this phenomenon. In organizational settings as much as in everyday life, individuals are assigned roles, which come with a socially expected behavioral pattern, mindset and values. Role identities capture different facets of the self, depending on the diverse social contexts in which an individual is embedded, e.g. the role of a mother, who is also a board member of a Fortune 500 company (Ashforth, Harrison, & Corley, 2008a; Stryker & Burke,

S. Brusoni, N.A. Rosenkranz 2000). Thus, individuals occupy multiple role identities that delimit context appropriate cognitions, affect and behavior. In particular, the role identity salient at given points in time determines the evaluation of informationÕs relevance, validity, and applicability. This idea is exemplified by reflecting on Morton Thiokol, the manufacturer of the faulty solid rocket booster that prompted the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger: ‘‘A senior engineer helped reverse a decision not to launch the Challenger when he was asked to Ôtake off his engineering hat and put on his management hatÕ’’ (Ashforth, Kreiner, & Fugate, 2000; Ashforth & Mael, 1989, p. 30). As this example shows, role enactment has a direct influence on the assessment of information and the decision making process. Therefore, it is a reasonable assumption that identity similarly affects an individualÕs learning potential. A natural yet equally underexplored question is the actual antecedents to, and transitions between, role identities. The cues or triggers that activate a role identity are crucial to our understanding of when and how an organizational can actively support the identification and thus the learning process of an individual. Only then will we be able to make reasonable assessments on the consequences and outcomes of learning processes, both at the individual and organizational level. The ability to handle multiple roles with little conflict is crucial to the successful pursuit of ambidexterity at the individual level and has been highlighted by previous research (Floyd & Lane, 2000). The assumption is that these individuals are able to transcend the exploration-exploitation paradox, as they are more likely to engage in what is known as Ôparadoxical thinkingÕ (Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009; Smith & Tushman, 2005). Instead of perceiving exploratory and exploitative activities as contradictory and subject to a trade-off, individuals applying paradoxical thinking focus on potential synergies between exploration and exploitation and seek out ways to bring them together. As such there is a need to better understand how different, sometimes competing firm environments and personal characteristics may impact the ability of individuals to engage in different role identities within an organization. Finally, identity theory has repeatedly implied that cognitive processes are tightly linked to an individualÕs identification (Abrams, 1999). Incidentally, the example on Thiokol above can also be interpreted using attentional lenses. The requested change in role identity (i.e. from the engineering hat to the management hat) brought about different criteria to assess what information was relevant to the problem at hand, and what criteria to use when assessing it. Such an attention shift is clearly related to the specific role adopted by the organizational member, and provide an interesting bridge between our two core concepts (i.e. identity and attention), which we shall now explore further.

Organizational learning: cognitive foundations The idea that ÔcognitionÕ is important to understand issues of organizational learning and strategy is certainly not new. What is new is that, in very recent years, management scholars have started to look at neurosciences as a source of ideas to actually observe cognitive processes as they happen. For example, Powell (2011) argued that recent

Reading between the lines: Learning as a process between organizational context and individualsÕ proclivities developments in cognitive neurosciences might supply new techniques and ideas to shed light on a number of core issues in strategy research. Attention is a specifically important concept here, as strategy has been already framed through the lenses of attention theory. The work of Ocasio (1997) is by now the standard reference point for a discussion of the role of attention structures as the key intervening factor between environmental signals on the one side and organizational performance on the other. From a neuro-psychological viewpoint, attention and attention control are two very well studied individual-level phenomena, and we have gained substantial insights about the core processes underpinning this specific set of neurological processes (also known as Ôexecutive functionsÕ) . Attention may be a central mechanism behind the individualÕs ability that helps to resolve the exploration-exploitation dilemma on the managerial level (Ocasio, 1997). This is consistent with recent research in cognitive neurosciences which focuses on the neuro-modulation of attention. For example, Laureiro-Martı´nez, Brusoni, and Zollo (2010) identified a possible link between the activation of specific executive functions related to attention control, and the exploitation-exploration trade off. In particular, reviewing prior art in cognitive neurosciences, they pinpointed the interaction between the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the locus coeruleus (LC) as those brain regions are involved in the modulation of attention. They infer that they might then be related to the ability of individuals in balancing the exploration-exploitation trade-off (Aston-Jones & Cohen, 2005; Cohen, AstonJones, & Gilzenrat, 2004; Usher, Cohen, Servan-Schreiber, Rajkowski, & Aston-Jones, 1999). At the organizational level, we know that when performance falls below a certain threshold, organizations start searching for ÔbetterÕ solutions (Greve, 2003). Intuitively, we accept that this happens at the individual level too. But how? This is indeed the core question posed by scholars in the emerging Organizational Cognitive Neuroscience (OCN) field. Senior, Lee, and Butler (2011) provide a very informative overview of this stream of research, and of the main challenges ahead. They caution against mechanistic extension of the bottom up process which is typical, and overall rather sensible, in neurosciences. Yet, it might not work as effectively in the field of management, as organizations are more than the sum of their parts (Nelson & Winter, 1982). Issues related to the emergence of unintended effects of processes that cannot be neatly decomposed down to individual-level decisions are well known. The next section discusses two specific issues that might provide a viable context to do justice of the multilevel nature of the organizational learning phenomenon: leadership and routinization.

Organizational learning as a multi-level construct While both lines of enquiry, identity theory and attention control, are very promising venues, one issue remains widely open: what is the ÔaggregationÕ mechanism? Unless we take somewhat extreme views on methodological individualism, we need to find a mechanism through which individual-level processes aggregate up to organizational level

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outcomes. This is a major methodological challenge for everyone interested in not extending the tendency, well known in management studies, to use concepts borrowed from various disciplines in a purely metaphorical way. As Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) have outlined, knowledge is not generated at the organizational level, but by the individual. Yet, in order to gain momentum, knowledge needs to be spread and escalated (Argyris & Schon, 1996; Daft & Weick, 1984). For example, Corley and Gioia (2004) provide empirical evidence that changes of the organizational identity triggered by internal shocks, resulted in behavioral adjustments at the individual level. Thus, only if we derive models that link individual, group and organizational levels, we can understand how learning is translated and why some information get formulated into new knowledge, while other is discarded. We will sketch two examples which lend themselves to a discussion on how to nurture identity and attention control in explaining organizational learning: (1) the function of leadership, and (2) the implications of routinization as a precursor to learning. In the final section we engage in the debate on the tensions between innovativeness (exploration) and standardization (exploitation).

The function of leadership in learning We focus on leaders and leadership processes because it is an analytically reasonable and empirically observable way of establishing a connection between individual level variables and macro level outcomes. Leaders, i.e. defined as organizational members in a position of high influence, effect organizational processes and outcomes in a broad, and observable fashion. In fact, both Powell (2011) and Senior et al. (2011) highlighted the field of leadership as one of the most promising directions for the fields of ÔNeurostrategyÕ and ÔOrganizational Cognitive NeurosciencesÕ. Within management studies, Rerup and Feldman (2011) provide a great example of the relationship between leadership (i.e. founders) and organizational learning. They observed how, through a process of trial-and-error learning, individuals within new organizations came to accept and share the cognitive schema of the founders, and how such schema became embedded in organizational routines. Also, studies which look at the emergence of patterns of behavior in new organizations (or organizations that went through radical changes) identify a number of attention-related issues which are pertinent to our argument. For example, Cacciatori (2012) discusses how objects of different sorts (e.g. excel sheets) activate processes of reciprocal learning and conflict across professional communities. The role of such objects can be interpreted with the lenses of attention, as they provide the cues and signals which people use to understand what matters, but also limit what people look at when taking a decision. As identity theory highlights, much of how an individual identifies him-/herself is determined by social context. One particular concept in that respect is the determination of what constitutes identity appropriate values, believes and appropriate behavioral patterns. Leaders have been highlighted in extant literature as particularly influential individuals, who take a central role in defining what is part

150 of a value set and what is not for a given identity (Ellemers, De Gilder, & Haslam, 2004). Leaders become prototypical role models to a social context, which not only allows them to excerpt their power, but also use their identity profile to allow individuals to see themselves in the leader (Hogg, 2001). An example of this can be taken from nature in the form of the Alpha animal or street gangs, in both examples the accepted leader of the cohort or gang determines what is part of the acclaimed identity as well as which behavior is supported or punished as identity violating. Applying this logic to the organizational level implies that members of the top management teams (TMTs) might have a strong impact on learning ability on the organizational level (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991). Indeed, Nag et al. (2007) provided evidence that organization membersÕ identity preserving efforts lead to the failure of an organizational change when managers were unwilling to alter the practices of how knowledge was used and implemented within the organization. The importance of linking individual and organizational level mechanisms was further exemplified by Fiol (2002) when introducing the concept of transitional identities as a precursor to organizational change. The author highlights that organizational change can only be successfully implemented, when the process of change is broken down to the individual level in the form of de-identification to reidentification steps. Ibarra (1999) provides one of the few studies that highlight how de- and re-identification, by means of provisional selves, breaks down routines on the firm level, while drawing on new routines on the individual level in order to generate a new identity. Thus, there is evidence that routines might not necessarily only be part of the problem, but also part of the solution.

Routinization as a precursor to learning Leadership or leaders more specifically, are only successful inasmuch as their decisions are accepted by other organizational members. Thus, the link between a leaderÕs decision and its institutionalization in the form of organizational routines ought to be related to organizational learning. The entrepreneurship field has generated a wealth of results about the antecedents of the ÔentrepreneurialÕ act of setting up a new firm. For example, through a set of studies based on the analysis of genetic data and longitudinal behavioral data, Shane and colleagues have greatly contributed to our understanding of what dispositional traits predict entrepreneurship, what are they genetic underpinning and how they interact with environmental characteristics (e.g. for broad overviews of the field: Shane, 2003, 2008). While this is very useful to explain new firmsÕ foundation, we know less about their growth processes. And yet this latter remains a central issue, from a policy and practice perspective. One of the crucial challenges faced by entrepreneurs is related to the difficulty of creating rules, procedures and routines that enable the organization to grow, while remaining true to the values and ideas of the founder(s). Extant literature provides much insight on imprinting and imprinting effects (e.g. Johnson, 2007), as manifest in enduring organizational processes and routines (e.g. Becker, 2004). However, we still have relatively few process studies about the origin of novel organizational processes and routines, and how

S. Brusoni, N.A. Rosenkranz people become identified into them through learning. The already cited work by Rerup and Feldman (2011) remains one of the most interesting counterexamples to this. Here, we could certainly borrow more from the rich literature on social learning that has devoted great attention to the analysis of socialization processes of new recruits in organizations (e.g. Chao et al., 1994). The perspective of institutionalizing organizational routines also draws a natural link to the identity literature. The concept of organizational identity has largely been shaped by Albert and Whetten (1985) in defining it as a collective of characteristics its members believe are central, distinctive, and enduring. Thus, organizational identity is an important references to individuals as it provides a normative territory within which individual learn what constitutes appropriate behavior within organizations (Brown & Starkey, 2000).1 Kogut and Zander (1996) further emphasize that individuals learn by virtue of memberships in social groups that allow for categorization. In more specific terms, organizational identity impact the way an individual perceives its environment and consequently evaluates and understands information to induce identity-compliant behavior (Ashforth, Rogers, & Corley, 2011; Haslam & Ellemers, 2005). While organizational identity facilitates the understanding and interpretation of new information it also has an inherent function to maintain and defend an established identity (Gioia & Thomas, 1996; Gioia et al., 2000), embedded in organizational routines and practices. These very routines, however, may hamper the correct framing and interpretation of information if it happens that information is not sufficiently compliant with the identity in place. For example, the case of Polaroid well exemplifies the difficulty of changing oneÕs identity, as embodied in a specific business model. Tripsas and Gavetti (2000) show how the Polaroid Corporation failed to alter their identity from an analog razor/blade business model to digital imaging, despite early investments and leading-edge technical capability in areas related to digital imaging. Established routines may lead to defend and reassure oneÕs identity, mitigating the possible learning potential. However, they might also generate inertia and failures (Gersick & Hackman, 1990). The problem is, we know little today about how identities come about or alter. Recent studies have only started to uncover the complexity a change in identity entails, and their implications for learning and organizational change (Gioia et al., 2010). As Brown and Starkey highlight: ‘‘routines are, at least in part, constitutive of membersÕ collective definitions of the organizationÕs identity (organizational self-images) so that variation in one necessarily implies variation in the other’’ (2000, p. 104). A change of identity provides leeway for Ôidentity ambiguityÕ, which means that in the process or de-identifying and re-identifying the organization is experimenting with new identities (Clark, Gioia, Ketchen, & Thomas, 2010; Corley & Gioia, 2004). Thus, we need to 1 Research in psychology differentiates between identity as a selfconcept (personal or individual identities) and identities based on memberships or through relational ties (relational or role identities). For the purpose of this paper we will only focus on the relational or role identities to highlight, how the organization directs learning through organizational identities.

Reading between the lines: Learning as a process between organizational context and individualsÕ proclivities understand much more about the possible positive and negative effects on learning that identity change and its ambiguity entail. This leads us to the final argument of this paper – the tension between exploitation and exploration.

Learning between innovativeness and efficiency An important debate resides around the tension between innovativeness (exploration) and efficiency (exploitation). The interplay of attention and identity considerations, in the context of a discussion about leadership and routinization, we argue, might play an important role in pushing this discussion further. Management scholars have devoted quite a lot of attention to creativity and idea generation in organizational settings, focusing on the extent to which the rules and procedures that make organizational life possible on the one side, hamper and limit individual creativity on the other (see Adler & Borys, 1996 for a review). For example, the lean management literature is now looking at how and if the application of standardized problem solving techniques in the fuzzy front end of NPD activities is increasing efficiency at the expense of flexibility and creativity (Schulze & Sto ¨rmer, 2012). Similarly, Camuffo and Gerli (2012) provide an exploratory analysis of what lean managers actually do, focusing on how they select, implement and adapt tools from the lean management toolkit. They look at how middle managers develop standardized rules to apply such tools reliably, once they are adapted to the specificities of their organization. Rittiner and Brusoni (2013) observed how specific organizational roles are created to lead the introduction and diffusion of routines that are meant to increase creativity and efficiency simultaneously. Issues of leadership and routinization interact quite transparently in their account of organizational adaptation. They identify two issues that limit the diffusion of new, lean practices. First, obviously, creative people (R&D engineers, in this case) do not like their work to become ÔroutinizedÕ, even though they recognize the need for efficiency. Second, the key issue is that such people do not consider the issue of efficiency in managerial practices a concern of theirs, as they have a different professional identity: they care about the technology, not the process through which the technology is developed. Those who are supposed to initiate efficiency initiatives suffer of a legitimacy crisis, as they are not seen as equals. Hence, these latter struggle to create occasions for attracting the R&D peopleÕs attention toward the need of increasing efficiency through standardization in their work (e.g. they organize workshops, seminars, visits etc.). Yet, at the same time, they battle to gain legitimacy within the organization establishing their own professional identity as process improvement managers. Generating attention to the tools, without an established and accepted professional identity (the Ôprocess managerÕ) would do no good. We need both to explain how new rules diffuse, i.e. how the organization learn and adapt! While the relationship between routines and change is an old one, dating back at least to Nelson and Winter (1982), the conceptualization of organizational identities as a precursor to learning is a fairly new one. As Brown and Starkey (2000) highlight, scholars did not connect organizational

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identity with organizational learning until a decade ago. Identity has classically been perceived as an inherently stable and enduring feature of an organization, thus not a lever to change processes (Hogg & Terry, 2000; Rhodewalt, Morf, Hazlett, & Fairfield, 1991). Literature in strategic management on organizational inertia has repeatedly pointed towards path dependency in preservation and reaction to an organizationÕs identity (Hannan & Freeman, 1984). Brown and Starker summarize ‘‘the role of psychodynamic factors in individual and organizational identity maintenance and the negative effects such factors can have on learning’’ (2000, p. 103). So, how can organizational identity become a precursor and determinant of learning? One answer to this question might lie in the multiplicity of organizational identities. As a response to increased fragmentation of organizations, scholars have put forward the idea that the organization of the 21. Century holds multiple rather than one identity (Ashforth et al., 2008a). This means that the organization allows more than one interpretation of what is central to itself. By holding multiple identities, an organization facilitates to look at information from multiple perspectives, enhancing its capacity for creativity and thus learning (cf. Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Pratt & Foreman, 2000). This not only allows addressing multiple stakeholders to an organization, but also attracts more diverse employees, which in turn enriches the set of perspectives an organization is able to take on the information it receives from its environment (Pratt & Foreman, 2000). One way individuals may cater to different role identities, and thus different learning arenas, is the concept of contextual knowledge (Dutton, Ashford, OÕNeill, & Lawrence, 2001; Howell & Boies, 2004). Contextual knowledge defines strategic, relational and/or normative knowledge allowing an individual to ÔspeakÕ and ÔunderstandÕ different languages as appropriate for the domain context faced with (Dutton et al., 2001). This allows the individual to develop a deep understanding of context-specific operations, norms, values, and intent that might address both needs of efficiency and innovation. These two multi-identity concepts on the individual and organizational level could be first grounds to explain, how efficiency and innovation could be jointly coordinated. An important inquiry to pursue is thus how multiple role identities are coordinated to address both innovativeness and efficiency. Past research has indicated that the ability to handle multiple roles plays a non-trivial part in bringing together exploration and exploitation (Floyd & Lane, 2000).

Discussion and conclusion Organizational learning takes a central role in management research, as it is assumed to affect firm performance and survival. However, while most studies have focused on effects of learning at the firm level, scholars have increasingly voiced the need to better understand the underlying mechanisms on the meso and micro-level of learning (Shrivastava, 1983). Consequently, while prior contributions explain why organizations perform differently within the same industry, the means by which learning becomes a differentiator of competitive advantage is still underresearched, and presents grounds that require further attention (Ahuja & Katila, 2004; March, 1991).

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Theoretical implications The ideas developed in this paper provide a starting point to discuss how the interaction between the individual and the organization affect the conduct of organizational learning. More specifically, we draw on identity theory and organizational attention, as they relate to specific and observable neuro-psychological processes. We have tried to sketch linkages between such processes and two core constructs in modern organizational theory: leadership and routines. Both can be interpreted using the lenses of identity and attention. Identity theory and attention theory hold very fruitful venues for our understanding of organizational learning. Also, management scholars can now leverage on the wealth of findings originating within the field of neuro-psychology. The ability of identifying with precision what specific brain systems are associated to individual traits related to attention control, learning and knowledge generation is crucial not only to further substantiate key results in cognitive psychology (and occasionally challenging them), but also to provide more firmer foundations to the organizational learning literature, which can in turn provide useful insights in terms of the aggregation mechanisms which transform individual processes into organizational outcomes. This paper contributes to extant research on ambidexterity, particularly, it encourages new directions to our understanding of how individuals may serve as the origin to simultaneous exploitative and exploratory learning. The ideas developed in this paper echo research on identity theory, which upholds that an individualÕs characteristics directly influence how activities are performed. This paper is one of the first attempts to link role identities to the concept of ambidexterity. Answering to the research call by Raisch et al. (2009) for an integrated view on the interaction between the micro and macro level, this paper has identified possible individual-level antecedents of organizational ambidexterity. The interplay of identity and attention considerations can be leveraged to analyze the tension between exploitation and exploration, on the basis of concepts that can be related to actionable neuro-psychological microprocesses.

Empirical implications Defining learning as a multi-level construct has extensive implications for empirical measurement and testing. In particular, while existing literature provides for measures that tap into an individualÕs inclination for role segmentation and role integration, we have yet to define how the transition between role identities can be captured. In line with existing literature on identity theory, Mael & Ashforth (1995) provide measures to capture role identities and guidance on data that can be used to triangulate primary data. Second, by the nature of the analysis, any model on identity or attention effects on learning will largely be bound to field study analysis or experimentation. While longitudinal field studies have their advantage of capturing the different time horizons of exploitation and exploration, they run the risk of incorporating a lot of noise through self/reported data and proxy measure. A lab setting would allow for

S. Brusoni, N.A. Rosenkranz controlling of different conditions to define not only the effects of singular role identities, but also the preference for role transitions. However, laboratory settings also require identifying with great precision which specific micro-level processes are to be explored. Processes of identification and attention control are, in our view, very promising starting points.

Managerial implications Both identity and attention considerations lead to clear and immediate managerial issues. Firms spend considerable energy in devising ways to socialize their new recruits into specific role and functional identities (e.g. Ashforth, Sluss, & Harrison, 2008b). Clear identification benefits individuals in terms of career progress, salary and personal selfacceptance. Yet, identification also leads to loss in variety, role inertia and lack of learning at the organizational level (March, 1991). What is good at the individual level does not pay off at the organizational level. How can firms manage this tension? Attention control theory provides the methods and categories to analyze how individuals shift their attention from what they know well, to what they are less familiar with (Laureiro-Martı´nez et al. 2010). On this basis, training tools can be developed to foster the skills underpinning the ability to shift oneÕs attention span, thus attenuating the negative effects of excessive role identification. The interplay of identity and attention considerations is a new and fragmented field of enquiry. In our view, though, it provides very fertile ground to develop robust and managerially relevant foundations to the organizational learning literature.

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STEFANO BRUSONI is Professor of technology and Innovation Management at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). His research focuses on understanding the strategic implications of product design strategies, relying on diverse methodologies ranging from qualitative methods to neuroscientific techniques. His work was published on journals like Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, Research Policy, Organization Studies, Industrial and Corporate Change, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, etc.

NICOLE ROSENKRANZ is affiliated faculty at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. She received her Ph.D. from the University of St.Gallen (CH), and MBA from the European Business School (D). Her research focuses on understanding the micro-foundations of strategy, concentrating on the multi-level implications of strategy making. In particular, she is interested in the underlying learning mechanisms that drive exploitation and exploration, drawing on identity theory. Nicole teaches at the undergraduate level and has previously managed executive education at Columbia University Graduate School of Business. Further, she serves as a reviewer to diverse journals, amongst which Organization Science, Journal of Management and the Academy of Management Review.