Technological learning environments and organizational practices--cross-sectoral evidence from Britain

This study explores the co-occurrence of technological and organizational learning processes by analyzing the adoption and use of four types of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices, rewarding, problem-solving, top-down management, and decentralization, in the 1990s, across different technological learning environments. Using a sample of British workplaces, we show that the level of use of diverse HRM practices, aimed at creating different learning incentives, is persistently heterogeneous across technological learning environments, suggesting that HRM forms an essential part of the technological learning structure of firms. Copyright 2011 The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Associazione ICC. All rights reserved., Oxford University Press.