Structure, Competence and Learning in an Adaptive Model of the Firm

Organizational learning [cf. for instance the pioneering work of Cyert and March (1963) and, for a broad outline of its main economic implications, Nelson and Winter (1982) is an issue which deserves primary attention when studying the dynamic performance of economic systems. But organizational learning — it will be argued in this chapter — cannot be adequately handled within the existing dominant analytical framework of economic theory. Recent attempts to accommodate organizational issues within the neoclassical theory of the firm have impressively broadened the scope of the latter and tackled fundamental questions which used to lie outside the concern of economic theory; but they have not been able to deal in a satisfactory way with the problem of learning because neoclassical theory, in these most recent developments, is concerned with information, whereas learning is about knowledge.