Book Notes - Nicolas Hatzfeld

Economic Coordination and Learning by Firms

Nathalie LAZARIC and Jean-Marie MONNIER

Paris, Economica, 1995, 254 pages.

This book results from the conference "Technology, Learning, Space and Time" organized in 1994, in which Yannick Lung also participated, on the idea of learning and its role in changing forms of economic coordination within firms, between firms and at the scale of whole regions and countries. After examining this idea, the book is broken into two major parts: the nature and characteristics of learning within an organization; followed by the interactive and territorial aspects of inter-firm coordination.

Within firms, the exploitation of a field of learning tends to preclude later opportunities, to block the renewal of knowledge. This continuity is nonetheless necessary to the firm, which cannot place too much weight upon experiments it does not exploit. On the other hand, inertia reproduces the uncertainties of the environment, which are sometimes too strong. Hence there is a dilemma between the exploitation of existing knowledge and the exploration of new paths.

Organizational learning is not made up of a summation of pieces of knowledge, but is the fruit of their interaction: the quality of coordination determines coherence within a firm, at the same time reducing the breadth of the totality of individual knowledge. It presupposes that collective dynamics and rules function within a firm. When the impact of a new technology is evaluated, it is therefore necessary to reinterpret the analytical tools and their associated rules, because these belong to the past. Moreover, these rules are often part of a relational complex: to change certain rules is also to question the basis of coordination among actors and the balance of power.

In relations among firms, learning raises questions about interactions and their conditions of effectiveness, such as the development of confidence or conventions to overcome the problem of communication and the sharing of knowledge. These interactions are essential to renew the competencies of the firm. The theme of learning contributes to a renewal of debate about inter-firm coordination, so long as different types of proximity are taken into account. Reference is frequently made to technological and organizational proximity. But the concept of proximity, which allows a community or complementarity among firms to be realized, can also be extended to other types of interaction, especially geographical, institutional or cultural.

At this level we return to the dilemma raised above: on the one hand, the constraints of a static efficiency and apparatuses which lead firms to follow up their past learning, but without the renewal of knowledge; on the other hand, the creative dynamic which requires knowing how to move away from the initial trajectory. Both within the firm and in inter-firm learning relationships, it appears necessary to find a balance between these two.