Organizational Memory: From Expectations Memory to Procedural Memory

Organizational memory is not just the stock of knowledge about how to do things, but also of expectations of organizational members vis-a-vis each other and the organization as a whole. The central argument of this paper is that this second type of organizational memory –organizational expectations memory– is a necessary precondition for successfully creating and maintaining organizational procedural memory, which is at the basis of organizational performance. If members of organizations have fewer expectations of being rewarded beyond what is stipulated in formal contracts, these individuals are less likely to risk investing in collective tacit and firm-specific knowledge resources and more likely to focus on building individual and mobile knowledge resources that have value outside the boundaries of the organization. A case study of latent organizations in the Dutch film industry is presented to support the central argument and suggests further avenues of research, in particular concerning the effects of labour mobility on organizational expectations memory.

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