Turnover, Structure and Firm Specific Learning in a Large Corporation

This paper studies the acquisition of firm specific knowledge in a major Norwegian oil company. Based on self-report data from 980 managers and professionals the paper investigates the impact of formal structure, informal relationships, turnover and mobility. The results support the assumption that tenure (time-based experience) and the number of internal transfers (job-based experience) are non-linearly related to learning. Inter-unit and intra-unit communication also effects the acquisition firm specific knowledge. Organizational units with high levels of turnover tend to have a higher speed of learning, that is, influx of personnel from other parts of the organization increases firm specific learning.