Making, breaking and following rules: The Irvine case

James March’s highly influential article on organisational learning
underpins the studies of exploration and exploitation collected in this
issue. What is less well known is that March’s article, which is based on a
computer simulation of collective and individual learning, reflects a reallife
experiment in exploration and exploitation that he, in large part,
designed and conducted when he was the new ‘boy Dean’ of the School of
Social Sciences in the University of California at Irvine between 1964 and
1969. This paper tells this story and then uses it to critique March’s AU :1
original model. It argues that March’s model, which was probably the first
simulation of an organisation learning, worked to constitute rather than AU :2
model the phenomenon of organisational learning. The Irvine story is also
important because it provides the context for what constitutes knowledge
in organisation theory, and because it highlights the personal trauma and
distress that can accompany the creative play of exploration.