Information technology facilitating interorganizational learning in an IT outsourcing collaboration: An examination of transparency and receptivity.

摘要

Individuals learn from each other and in a similar fashion, it is thought that organizations learn from one another too. The learning that takes place between organizations is referred to as interorganizational learning (IOL). Interorganizational learning is especially likely in today's organizational climate where collaborative arrangements are becoming more commonplace. Collaborative relationships are particularly important in the field of “information technology” (IT), where increasingly services are being provided by one organization to another, by companies that specialize in these practices. Despite the fact that these relationships can be found occurring across all organizations in both the public and private sectors, few researchers have delved into them to identify what enables effective interorganizational learning; research has yet to uncover the ways in which IT benefits alliances with respect to building new knowledge for both partners.; This study used a case study research methodology to explore how the use of IT in a collaboration impacted the ability of each partner in the relationship to learn (i.e. the organization's degree of transparency and its degree of receptivity). Three collaborations involving one company (an IT outsourcer) and its clients (educational institutions) were examined to generate theory about the relationship between IT use in an alliance and interorganizational learning. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected for the study, through interviews, a survey instrument and the organizations' web sites.; The study found that when IT was used by the partners to facilitate the alliance interorganizational learning (higher and lower-level learning) transpired. Organizational transparency and receptivity resulted when IT was used to facilitate the relationship because the technology provided the partners with the ability to make information available to each other and because it provided channels for the partners to absorb information into their organizations. Other factors that were examined because of their potential to impact the interorganizational learning outcomes in the relationships included: absorptive capacity (capacity of the partners to learn), relative absorptive capacity (similarity of the organizations) and the intent of the partners. Intent and absorptive capacity were found to have influenced the levels of interorganizational learning resulting from IT use in the alliances.