Organising Interfirm Learning

Von Maj Munch Andersen he recent rise of greening as a corporate issue forms a part of what some environmental researchers see as the emergence of a new green techno-economic paradigm (1). The greening process is seen as revolutionary in character, entailing a paradigm shift resulting in major cognitive and technological changes. This paradigm change is expected to have thorough structural effects for the whole economy. But how does the green trend, pushed forward by the political system, diffuse on the market and affect interfirm dynamics? This paper investigates how firm interdependencies and the related interfirm learning influence on the greening process. It seeks to present an analytical framework of interfirm learning based on the as yet immature dynamic neo-institutional economic theories. This approach brings atten tion to the system failures related to the greening of industry. Interfirm learning gains significance in efforts to understand the retardation of the gree ning process. The paper takes a constructive approach. It focuses on theory development and in presenting the core elements of a conceptual framework of interfirm (green) learning rather than in criticising existing theoretical or empirical work. The theoretical development is inspired by an empirical analysis based on in-depth case-studies of green interfirm learning processes between two Danish paper mills and their suppliers, customers and competitors (2). theoretical Background