Management System Evolution Through Organizational Learning: Developing a Dynamic Capability Framework
Keywords:
organizational learning, dynamic capabilities, management system evolution, qualitative research, organizational renewal, learning routines, TehranAbstract
This study aimed to develop a dynamic capability framework explaining how organizational learning drives the evolution of management systems in contemporary organizations. This qualitative study was conducted using an inductive exploratory design. The participants included 24 senior managers, middle managers, organizational development specialists, learning managers, and management consultants working in public and private organizations in Tehran, Iran. Participants were selected through purposive sampling based on direct experience with organizational change, learning systems, process redesign, and managerial transformation. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and continued until theoretical saturation was achieved at the twenty-first interview, followed by three confirmatory interviews. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis supported by NVivo software. Credibility was strengthened through member checking, peer review, repeated coding, and constant comparison. The analysis identified five main categories explaining management system evolution through organizational learning: strategic sensing through collective learning, knowledge articulation and codification, ambidextrous learning between exploration and exploitation, leadership-enabled learning culture, and resource reconfiguration through institutionalized learning routines. The findings showed that management systems evolve when organizations convert dispersed experience into shared interpretation, transform learning into repeatable routines, and use these routines to reconfigure structures, processes, technologies, and decision-making mechanisms. Organizational learning acted as the generative mechanism through which dynamic capabilities were formed, renewed, and embedded. The study concludes that management system evolution is not merely the outcome of technological modernization or structural redesign; rather, it is a dynamic learning-based process through which organizations sense environmental change, interpret internal and external knowledge, seize improvement opportunities, and reconfigure managerial routines. The proposed framework contributes to dynamic capability theory by showing how learning mechanisms operate as microfoundations of management system renewal.
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