Remembrance of Things Past? The Dynamics of Organizational Forgetting

How organizations create, transfer, and retain knowledge has been the focus of intensive investigation by management researchers. However, one aspect of the dynamics of knowledge—organizational forgetting—has received comparatively little attention. In this paper, we draw on an exploratory, multiple...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Management science 2004-11, Vol.50 (11), p.1603-1613
Main Authors: Holan, Pablo Martin de, Phillips, Nelson
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alliances
Business administration
Business studies
Case studies
Competitive advantage
Corporate strategies
Economics and Finance
Forgetting
Hotelkeepers
Humanities and Social Sciences
International alliances
Knowledge management
Learning
Management
Management science
Memory
Organization theory
Organizational culture
organizational forgetting
Organizational learning
Process management
Studies
unlearning
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:How organizations create, transfer, and retain knowledge has been the focus of intensive investigation by management researchers. However, one aspect of the dynamics of knowledge—organizational forgetting—has received comparatively little attention. In this paper, we draw on an exploratory, multiple-case study of learning in international strategic alliances to explore how and why organizations forget. Based on our case study, we develop a theory of organizational forgetting, discuss the role of forgetting in the dynamics of organizational knowledge, and present a typology of types of organizational forgetting.
ISSN:0025-1909
1526-5501
DOI:10.1287/mnsc.1040.0273