The role of unlearning in metamorphosis and strategic resilience

Marta Morais‐Storz · Nhien Nguyen

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Organizational Learning and Leadership Innovation and Knowledge Management Organizational Change and Leadership

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to conceptualize what it means to be resilient in the face of our current reality of indisputable turbulence and uncertainty, suggest that continual metamorphosis is key to resilience, demonstrate the role of unlearning in that metamorphosis and suggest that problem formulation is a key deliberate mechanism of driving continual cycles of learning and unlearning. Design/methodology/approach The paper entails a conceptual analysis. Findings It is found that both the unlearning and resilience literature streams are stuck in a paradigm whereby organizational behavior entails adaptation to the external environment and reaction to crisis. This paper suggests that, given a world of turbulence and uncertainty, a more useful paradigm is one where organizations take action before action is desperately needed, and that they proactively contribute to enacting their environment via their own continual metamorphosis. Research limitations/implications Future research should explore further the factors that can facilitate sensing the early warning signs, and facilitate the cyclical learning–unlearning process of metamorphosis. Practical implications The primary practical implication is that to ensure strategic resilience, managers must be able to identify early warning signs and initiate metamorphosis. This means understanding the processes needed to support unlearning, namely, problem formulation. Originality/value The originality and value of the present paper lies in that it suggests a shift in paradigm from adaptation and reaction, to action and enactment. Further, it proposes a cyclical process of learning and unlearning that together define periods of metamorphosis, and suggests problem formulation, whereby the mission statement is assessed and revised, as a mechanism in that endeavor.

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References

1985The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action 1999Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams 1991Organizational Learning: The Contributing Processes and the Literatures 1992Core capabilities and core rigidities: A paradox in managing new product development 1990The Fifth Discipline 1981How Organizations Learn and Unlearn 2008Managing the unexpected: resilient performance in an age of uncertainty 2015Resilience in Business and Management Research: A Review of Influential Publications and a Research Agenda

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2019Antecedents and consequence of organizational unlearning: Evidence from China 2022Organizational Resilience to Supply Chain Risks During the COVID‐19 Pandemic 2019Exploring linkages between unlearning and relearning in organizations 2018Organizational unlearning: time to expand our horizons?2018Responding to business model innovation: organizational unlearning and firm failure 2024

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