Abstract: Organizational learning is an important way to deal with environmental uncertainty. Only with continuous learning can we form an organization with continuous creativity and constantly seek new ways to obtain performance advantages in environmental changes. In organizational learning, internal and external learning are considered to be important learning methods for organizations to maintain and obtain market advantages. Because the internal learning and the external learning are two indispensable and different organizational learning methods, organizations often fall into the dilemma of how to balance the two. For example, a single emphasis on the internal learning is easy to form a competency trap, but an excessive emphasis on the external learning is easy to lead to an innovation trap. How to balance and when to balance the two kinds of learning activities has become an important topic in the organizational research management.
In order to solve the problem of how to achieve balance between the internal and the external learning, previous studies have widely discussed the antecedents of learning balance from the perspectives of the external knowledge distribution and the knowledge network. Recent studies emphasize the impact of the organizational dynamic of playfulness on learning, and believe that when the organization can provide employees with a fault-tolerant environment and encourage them to try first, employees are more willing to conduct internal dialogue and external interaction, so as to realize the balance between internal resource sharing and external resource grabbing, and create performance in the balance. Therefore, the primary purpose of this paper is to try to analyze the formation mechanism of internal and external learning balance in dynamic environment from the perspective of the organizational dynamic of playfulness. Although the existing studies have begun to generally analyze the antecedents of learning balance from different external perspectives, it is unknown how this balance is realized internally. The innovative balance view attributes the antecedents of learning balance to “improving the weaknesses”, that is, the organization should improve the relatively weak learning activities to achieve the balance between the two learning activities. The view of learning balance emphasizes that the simple strategy of “strengthening the strengths” or “improving the weaknesses” can not meet the balance requirements, but the balance strategy should be determined according to the organizational objectives. Therefore, the second purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents of learning balance from an internal perspective under the organizational performance goal.
Focusing on the internal perspective of the balance between two types of learning interaction, and the external perspective of the balance between the playfulness dynamic capability and the environmental dynamics, this paper takes more than 400 science and technology innovation enterprises as the research object to explore the realization rules of the learning balance from the internal and external perspectives. The results of the study are as follows: (1) From the internal perspective, both internal and external learning and the balance between the two have a positive impact on the organizational performance; when either side of internal and external learning is weaker than the other, strengthening the weak can achieve the learning balance and improve the performance; but when both are weak, improving either side alone can not bring higher performance, and we should choose the strategy of improving internal and external learning at the same time. (2) From the external point of view, the playfulness dynamic capability has a positive impact on the learning balance; and the fault tolerance ability of start-up and mature enterprises affects the performance through the sequential learning balance, and the development enterprise affects the performance through the synchronic learning balance. (3) In the initial stage, the environmental dynamism has a significant negative moderating effect on the mediating process of the sequential learning balance; in the development stage, it has a significant negative moderating effect on the mediating process of the synchronic learning balance; however, it has no significant moderating effect in the mature stage.
The theoretical contribution of this paper is reflected in the following three aspects: First, the transformation from the knowledge level to the capability level is one of the important contributions of this study. The research is no longer limited to the knowledge level, but discusses the learning balance from the perspective of the organizational fault tolerance. At the same time, this paper breaks through the previous static research under the framework of traditional knowledge combination, introduces the life cycle and the organizational dynamic of playfulness into the antecedents of learning balance, makes up for the shortcomings of previous research, and promotes the development of the learning balance research in the situational and dynamic direction. Secondly, this paper finds that the strategy of “improving the weaknesses” under the performance goal is an effective means to effectively realize the internal and external learning balance. However, different from the innovation balance, the transformation process from the low-energy balance to the high-energy balance does not follow the promotion path of “low-energy balance-imbalance-high-energy balance”, but directly rises from the low-energy balance to the high-energy balance. Finally, by introducing the environmental dynamics and combining the enterprise life cycle, this paper constructs a cycle evolution process model of the impact of the fault tolerance on the learning balance in the external environment, and reveals that the external environment and the balance strategies adopted by enterprises in different life cycle stages are different. This expands the classification research of the learning balance from the simple classification perspective to the matching perspective of the life cycle and the learning balance. It also provides a clearer idea for the classification research of the dynamic balance of learning in the future.

Key words: Playfulness Dynamic Capability, Learning Balance, Punctuated Learning, Simultaneous Learning, Life Cycl Evolution

摘要： 由于内部学习与外部学习是两种不可或缺且截然不同的组织学习方式,组织时常会陷入如何对二者进行平衡的困境。而如何平衡及何时平衡两类学习活动成为当前组织管理研究的重要议题。本文以441家科创企业为调研对象,着重以两类学习相互作用为实现平衡的内部视角,以组织容错能力与环境动态性为实现平衡的外部视角,从内部与外部探讨了学习平衡的实现规律。结果显示:(1)从内部视角来看,内外部学习及二者平衡均对组织绩效具有正向影响;当内外部学习中任何一方弱于另一方时,加强弱项能够实现学习平衡,进而提升绩效;但当二者均弱时,单独提升任何一方均不能带来更高绩效,而应当选择同时提升内外部学习的策略。(2)从外部视角来看,组织容错能力对学习平衡具有正向影响;且初创期与成熟期企业容错能力通过序时性学习平衡影响绩效,发展期企业通过共时性学习平衡影响绩效。(3)在初创期,环境动态性对序时性学习平衡的中介过程具有显著负向调节效应;在发展期,对共时性学习平衡的中介过程具有显著负向调节效应;而在成熟期则不具显著调节作用。研究不仅从不同视角揭示了内外部学习平衡的形成机理,而且为企业合理配置学习资源提供了管理启示。

关键词: 组织容错能力, 学习平衡, 序时性平衡, 共时性平衡, 周期演进