IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bushor/v62y2019i4p451-458.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Introducing a ‘stop-doing’ culture: How to free your organization from rigidity

Author

Listed:
  • Klammer, Adrian
  • Grisold, Thomas
  • Gueldenberg, Stefan

Abstract

Individuals and organizations cannot learn perpetually. Managers should be aware that unlearning becomes necessary to discard obsolete and outdated mental models, assumptions, behaviors, or routines. We investigated new product development teams and interviewed change consultants to explore the phenomenon of unlearning in real-life contexts. We particularly focus on examples of cases in which these steps have been used and implemented successfully. In order to make room for new knowledge and foster innovations more efficiently, we identify and suggest four critical steps managers can introduce to help their employees unlearn: creating situational awareness, providing islands of temporal and spatial freedom, encouraging an error-forgiving and stop-doing culture, and reducing the influence of old knowledge over time. Fostering unlearning can prevent rigidity and stagnation while opening up room for innovation. This article adds an important practical dimension to the mainly theoretical ideas in the field of unlearning and provides strong implications for managers and other practitioners.

Suggested Citation

  • Klammer, Adrian & Grisold, Thomas & Gueldenberg, Stefan, 2019. "Introducing a ‘stop-doing’ culture: How to free your organization from rigidity," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 62(4), pages 451-458.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:62:y:2019:i:4:p:451-458
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2019.03.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681319300357
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.bushor.2019.03.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zachary Sheaffer & Rita Mano‐Negrin, 2003. "Executives’ Orientations as Indicators of Crisis Management Policies and Practices," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 573-606, March.
    2. Leal-Rodríguez, Antonio Luis & Eldridge, Stephen & Roldán, José Luis & Leal-Millán, Antonio Genaro & Ortega-Gutiérrez, Jaime, 2015. "Organizational unlearning, innovation outcomes, and performance: The moderating effect of firm size," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(4), pages 803-809.
    3. Yildiz, H. Emre & Fey, Carl F., 2010. "Compatibility and unlearning in knowledge transfer in mergers and acquisitions," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 448-456, December.
    4. Wensley, Anthony K.P. & Navarro, Juan Gabriel Cegarra, 2015. "Overcoming knowledge loss through the utilization of an unlearning context," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 1563-1569.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chohan, Raeesah & Paschen, Jeannette, 2023. "NFT marketing: How marketers can use nonfungible tokens in their campaigns," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 43-50.
    2. O’Donnell, Jonathan, 2022. "Administration of crowdfunding at Australian universities," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 33-42.
    3. Lyu, Chongchong & Zhang, Feng & Ji, Jing & Teo, Thompson S.H. & Wang, Ting & Liu, Zifan, 2022. "Competitive intensity and new product development outcomes: The roles of knowledge integration and organizational unlearning," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 121-133.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shubham Sharma & Usha Lenka, 2022. "On the shoulders of giants: uncovering key themes of organizational unlearning research in mainstream management journals," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 16(6), pages 1599-1695, August.
    2. Cegarra-Navarro, Juan-Gabriel & Wensley, Anthony & Batistic, Sasa & Evans, Max & Para, Clara Cubillas, 2021. "Minimizing the effects of defensive routines on knowledge hiding though unlearning," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 58-68.
    3. Ziyi Zhao & Yulu Yan, 2023. "The Role of Organizational Unlearning in Manufacturing Firms’ Sustainable Digital Innovation: The Mechanism of Strategic Flexibility and Organizational Slack," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-23, June.
    4. Yildiz, H. Emre & Murtic, Adis & Zander, Udo, 2024. "Re-conceptualizing absorptive capacity: The importance of teams as a meso-level context," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    5. Garcia-Perez, Alexeis & Cegarra-Navarro, Juan Gabriel & Sallos, Mark Paul & Martinez-Caro, Eva & Chinnaswamy, Anitha, 2023. "Resilience in healthcare systems: Cyber security and digital transformation," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    6. Abbu, Haroon R. & Gopalakrishna, Pradeep, 2021. "Synergistic effects of market orientation implementation and internalization on firm performance: Direct marketing service provider industry," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 851-863.
    7. Mengyao Xia & Bangzhu Zhu & Helen Huifen Cai, 2023. "Does duration of team governance decrease corporate carbon emission intensity," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(3), pages 1363-1388, May.
    8. Messeni Petruzzelli, Antonio & Ardito, Lorenzo & Savino, Tommaso, 2018. "Maturity of knowledge inputs and innovation value: The moderating effect of firm age and size," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 190-201.
    9. Zhou, Abby Jingzi & Fey, Carl & Yildiz, H. Emre, 2020. "Fostering integration through HRM practices: An empirical examination of absorptive capacity and knowledge transfer in cross-border M&As," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 55(2).
    10. Marvel, Matthew R. & Wolfe, Marcus T. & Kuratko, Donald F., 2020. "Escaping the knowledge corridor: How founder human capital and founder coachability impacts product innovation in new ventures," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 35(6).
    11. Leal-Rodríguez, Antonio L. & Ariza-Montes, Antonio J. & Morales-Fernández, Emilio & Albort-Morant, Gema, 2018. "Green innovation, indeed a cornerstone in linking market requests and business performance. Evidence from the Spanish automotive components industry," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 185-193.
    12. Palos-Sanchez, Pedro & Saura, Jose Ramon & Martin-Velicia, Felix, 2019. "A study of the effects of programmatic advertising on users' concerns about privacy overtime," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 61-72.
    13. Lyu, Chongchong & Zhang, Feng & Ji, Jing & Teo, Thompson S.H. & Wang, Ting & Liu, Zifan, 2022. "Competitive intensity and new product development outcomes: The roles of knowledge integration and organizational unlearning," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 121-133.
    14. Yunhui Zhao & Zhimin Wang & Taiwen Feng & Ting Kong & Qiansong Zhang, 2022. "Organizational unlearning and inclusive innovation: The moderating role of green control ambidexterity," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(4), pages 539-555, August.
    15. Sharma, Revti Raman & Chowdhury, Sharmistha & Yu, Yang, 2024. "The Effect of Cross-border Acquisition Experience on Subsequent Cross-border Acquisitions: A Test of the S-shape Hypothesis," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(3).
    16. Xiaoping He & Shuo Jiang, 2019. "Does gender diversity matter for green innovation?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(7), pages 1341-1356, November.
    17. Yi-Hui Huang & Shih-Hsin Su, 2009. "Public Relations Autonomy, Legal Dominance, and Strategic Orientation as Predictors of Crisis Communicative Strategies," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 86(1), pages 29-41, April.
    18. Yu Gao & Xiuyun Yang & Shuangyan Li, 2022. "Government Supports, Digital Capability, and Organizational Resilience Capacity during COVID-19: The Moderation Role of Organizational Unlearning," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-19, August.
    19. Santiago Quintero Ramírez & Walter Lugo Ruiz Castañeda & Jorge Robledo Velásquez, 2017. "Representation of unlearning in the innovation systems: A proposal from agent-based modeling," Estudios Gerenciales, Universidad Icesi, vol. 33(145), pages 366-376, November.
    20. Antonio L. Leal-Rodríguez & Gema Albort-Morant & Silvia Martelo-Landroguez, 0. "Links between entrepreneurial culture, innovation, and performance: The moderating role of family firms," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-17.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:62:y:2019:i:4:p:451-458. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.