¹California State University, Stanislaus, Turlock, CA, USA

Correspondence: P-S Deng, Department of Computer Information Systems, College of Business Administration, California State University, Stanislaus, Turlock, CA 95382, USA. E-mail: deng@toto.csustan.edu

²This manuscript is a revised version of the article that appeared in the Proceedings of the Third European Conference on Organizational Knowledge, Learning and Capabilities, April 5–6, 2002, Athens, Greece.

Received June 2002; Accepted January 2003.

Abstract

We draw upon the concepts of knowledge market, organizational tacit knowledge, credit assignment, and single-loop learning in proposing a market-based conceptual model for collaborative organizational learning. Our proposed model is characterized by the local competition among seller agents and the global collaboration among winner agents in forming a plan, through a chain of 'upstream–downstream' working relationship, for task accomplishment. This feature is achieved through three closely coupled processes: the expert selection process, the capital reallocation process, and the plan formation process. Our model is intended for multiple-step learning environment in which each task consists of a sequence of single-step learning tasks. Learning at the global level is the result of a sequence of nested single-loop learning at the local level.