Abstract: To identify effective ways of organizationallearning, this paper makes a case study of the Material Delivery Center in a Chineselarge-scale steelenterprise. And three key ways of organizational learning forenhancinglogisticscapability formanufacturing enterprise are summarized on the basis of resource-based view and organizational learning theory.The result of case study shows that successfully implementing systematicthinking, innovativeexperiment, andorganizational memory can efficiently help enhance logisticscapability, whichcontributes to better efficiency and effectiveness of exploiting logistic resources,thus significantly improving organizational logistic performance.
Keywords:logistic capability,organizational learning,case study,resource-based view
I. Introduction
Withthe increasing development of economic globalization and the increasing fierinessof market competition, more and more successful practices of domestic andforeign enterprises indicate that logistics is a key factor to supportenterprises to gain long-term competitive advantage through creating time andcost-based advantages[1]. However, the fact is that many enterprises with alot of logistics resources fail to implement logistics strategy. A lack of corelogistics capability has been considered as the fundamental reason for implementinglogistics strategy unsuccessfully. According to resource-based view (RBV), enterpriselogistics resource itself does not generate any advantage, and the significantdifference of logistics-based advantage actually depends on logistic capability.Logistic capability is the unique organizational capability to explore and exploitlogistics resources and to make them interact with other resources [1]. More and more researchers and practitioners focus onthe critical effect of logistics capability on the value creation of enterprise.Many studies confirmed that the different advantage based on the logistics capabilityhad been proved to be a kind of competitive advantage that can not beduplicated and replaced [2]. A lot of survey data and statistical analysis showedthat there was a significantly positive relationship between logisticscapability and business performance, and logistics capability was a type of strategicresource that could not be imitated and substituted by existing and potential competitors. Logistic capability has been increasingly usedacquire and maintain competitive advantage.Previous research mainly investigated the relationshipbetween logistics capability and business performance by large-scale sample statisticalsurvey. These empirical studies summed up the general link between logistics capabilityand business performance, and provided the direction to better understand howto obtain and maintain logistics competitive advantage. However, for enterprisemanagers, the critical issues are not only to decide whether to implement logisticsstrategy, but also to know which logistics capabilities are needed to successfullyimplement enterprise logistics strategies. Further, what ways can be usedeffectively to improve existing logistics capability or build a new logistics capability?Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to identify the constructs of logisticscapability and the key ways of organizational learning for improving businessperformance. In this paper, logistics capability is proposed as the results ofaccumulated learning when implementing logistics strategies and logisticsactivities, and as the knowledge embedded in the organizational systems,procedures and routines, from the perspective of resource-based view andorganizational learning.