Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management, Second Edition

Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the nature of the general management dominant logic concept (generally referred to below as simply ‘dominant logic’) and to connect it with key issues in learning, knowledge creation, and managerial choice. We also speculate on some potentially fruitful avenues for applying and extending the theory of dominant logic. This is not intended primarily as a review although many important aspects of a review are necessary to the fundamental purpose of the chapter. What is intended is to extend the usefulness of the dominant logic concept in understanding and exploring various organizational phenomena and connect it more firmly to various other concepts and literatures. Those interested in a basic review are referred to the original source (Prahalad and Bettis, 1986) and to a variety of other sources (e.g. Bettis and Prahalad, 1995; Bettis, 2000; Ginsberg, 1990; Grant, 1988; Ramanujam and Varadarajan, 1989; Von Krogh and Roos, 1996). Some relevant literature is also reviewed later in the chapter.

The concept of a general management dominant logic arose in response to the need to examine why firms find it so hard to manage (1) diversification (even ‘related’ diversification) and/or (2) rapid or discontinuous change in a core or base business (Prahalad and Bettis, 1986). Although superficially different, the issues of diversification and change in the core business both involve the necessity to change the mental models of managers. ...