Chris Myers – The Stories We Tell: Organizing for Vicarious Learning in Air Medical Transport TeamsJohan Chu – Durable dominance

Chris Myers – Vicarious learning, an individual’s learning from others’ experiences, has long been recognized as an important component of learning in organizations. Yet, prior research has focused primarily on the introduction of structures and conduits for this learning (e.g., knowledge management systems, personnel rotation, or communities of practice), to the exclusion of examining the interpersonal interactions occurring within these conduits and how they coalesce with formal and informal structures in the enactment of vicarious learning. Drawing from an observational and interview study of air medical transport teams, I inductively build a multi-stage process model of how individuals organize for vicarious learning, emphasizing interpersonal storytelling interactions as a key site of vicarious learning, while also attending to how individuals use formal structures and emergent practices to enable, enact, and elaborate these vicarious learning interactions. Specifically, this organizing model highlights the role of context in bounding and triggering vicarious learning interactions and articulates mechanisms through which different structures and practices enable (by building capacity and increasing heedful interrelating) and elaborate (by constructing routines and facilitating transfer) the learning from these interactions. I conclude by discussing the implications of this organizing model for both the study and practice of vicarious learning in organizations.

Johan Chu – I propose an explanation for durable dominance—dominants’ enduring control of vastly disproportionate shares of contested resources in the face of mass entrepreneurial entry and increased competitive parity. I argue that increased, more potent competitive entry and more level rules of competition can benefit dominants. More and stronger new entrants disproportionately disadvantage non-dominants compared to dominants, and weaken near-dominants’ ability to challenge dominants. Durable dominance is observed in many settings, for example, in the increased gap between the wealthiest in the U.S. and everyone else, and in industries where dominant companies maintain their dominance in open, competitive markets.