Learning and innovation in the firm: the issue of changing organizational routines.

Summary In evolutionary theory, the appropriation of technology in the firm requires the acquisition of specific and partly tacit knowledge acquired through learning. The knowledge is also "memorized" in the routines and the organizational memory constituted results in the channelling of activities, and particularly innovation activities, into certain precise paths. In this perspective, the renewal of routines, or organizational learning process, is crucial insofar as it will condition the way a firm manages change and the improvement of products and processes over time. Contrary to the evolutionary approach, the modification of routines must, in our view, be considered as a process of gradual construction in the course of activities and not as an adaptation prior to the establishment of a new technological learning path. The notion of techno-organizational learning makes it possible to account for the concomitant construction of a firm's technological capabilities and organizational skills. The modification of routines during an unlearning-learning process is thus a potential source of innovation. The innovation (the resolution of a problem) in question can be organizational in the sense that it will concern the organizational components of the technology (management practices, work organization). But it can also be technical if it leads to a modification of the product design or an improvement of the process.