Paradoxical Tensions in Learning Processes: Exploration, Exploitation and Exploitative Learning

International audienceResearch on organizational paradoxes, notably the learning/performingparadox, have demonstrated the potential value of a detailed analysis of tensionsresulting from the need to develop future capabilities, while simultaneouslyguaranteeing success in the present. But analyzing this paradox exclusively fromthe perspective of the antagonism between exploration and exploitation maskstensions of a different nature linked to phenomena concerning the transmission,extension and replication of existing capabilities. In this article we apply a conceptderiving from the field of project management, namely exploitative learning, whichprovides a broader appreciation of the diversity of learning processes located inthe grey area between exploration and exploitation. Empirically, we will focus onthe study of tensions between exploitative learning and performing perceived bythe actors in an industrial infrastructure engineering unit simultaneouslydeveloping a number of different projects and taking on new recruits. It transpiresthat learning processes associated with the development of teams for newprojects and the training of numerous recruits can, at the macro- and microstructurallevels, run counter to short-term logics of performance, therebythreatening the development of future capabilities. Our study makes it possible tobroaden the terms by which the learning/performing paradox is defined. It alsoenriches our understanding of exploitative learning situations by demonstratingthat they require both an allocation in terms of human resources and aninvestment in terms of time, approaches that are hard to reconcile with short-termgoals