Learn-how to improve collaboration and performance

Organizational learning, a prerequisite for high performance in dynamic environments, is a challenge for many organizations. One set of activities shown to improve organizational learning of new work practices is learn-how. Learn-how refers to learning activities that combine experimentation, adaptation-in-use, and staff participation (e.g. dry runs). This paper proposes that organizations that use learn-how not only experience project-level success with the implementation of new work practices, but also organizational-level success as indicated by overall measures of performance. We tested our hypotheses in a longitudinal study of 23 hospital neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) involved in a quality improvement collaborative. The results support our hypothesis that learn-how is positively related to organizational performance, as measured by NICUs' risk-adjusted mortality rates for 1061 infant-patients. Moreover, our data reveal that interdisciplinary collaboration mediates this relationship and has a more positive relationship to performance for organizations that perform more complex tasks. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.