Impact of experience heterogeneity on individual learning curves

By Anand Nandkumar, Srikanth Kannan, Samuel Kleiner, Dutt Dev Harsha Tadikonda
Academy of Management | February 2018

DOI

doi.org/10.5465/ambpp.2013.15627abstract

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Nandkumar, Anand., Kannan, Srikanth., Kleiner, Samuel., Tadikonda, Dutt Dev Harsha. Impact of experience heterogeneity on individual learning curves Academy of Management doi.org/10.5465/ambpp.2013.15627abstract.

Academy of Management, 2018

Abstract

Learning by doing is one of the key mechanisms that one of the key mechanisms that influences capability development in firms. Recent research has shown that the manner in which individuals within organizations accumulate and learn from experience significantly contributes to the differences in productivity between organizations. In this paper we explore whether individual learning is fungible across work environments. We empirically show that individual learning curves are significantly influenced by the context of work and the nature of experience of the individual. We discuss implications for our understanding of learning curves and how they may influence capability accumulation.

Anand Nandkumar is an Associate Professor of Strategy, Executive Director of SRITNE at the Indian School of Business (ISB), and Associate Dean of the Centre for Learning and Teaching Excellence. He explores industry and firm-level phenomena that influence innovation - the generation of new ideas, and entrepreneurship - distribution and commercialisation of new ideas. His research focuses on high-technology industries such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and software, and it falls in between industrial organisation (IO), economics of technological change, and strategy.

Professor Nandkumar’s current work in the innovation stream examines the effect of stronger intellectual property rights (IPR) on different aspects of innovation, such as the influence of stronger patents on long run incentives for innovation or the influence of stronger patents on the functioning of Markets for Technology (MFT). In the entrepreneurship stream, his current work examines the influence of venture capitalists on entrepreneurial performance.

Professor Nandkumar graduated with a PhD in Public Policy and Management, with a focus in strategy and entrepreneurship from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008. Prior to his PhD, he worked for 3 years with a startup in Silicon Valley, and prior to that, in New York City with one of the world’s largest financial services firms.

True to his expertise, at ISB, Professor Nandkumar teaches Strategic Innovation Management and Strategic Challenges for Innovation-based startups.

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