Two themes characterize the organizational learning literature: one focuses on intra organizational learning processes, and another focuses on inter organizational learning processes. This article stresses the need to cross-fertilize these themes of organizational learning by proposing a dynamic model of organizational learning within and between organizations. This cross-fertilization is important in order to understand how organizations may cope with the fundamental organizational learning problem of addressing exploitation and exploration, i.e., to create both reliability and variety in experience. In this article it is proposed that exploitation and exploration occur both within and between organizations and that they are deeply interlaced through intra-and interorganizational learning processes.
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