This study is not concerned too much with the reasons for learning, but is more about how actors and groups of actors actually learn and the resources at their disposal for learning. It analyzes the organizational learning process in the political and social transformation of East Germany.

In contemporary management literature, the idea that managers and organizations should learn and provide widespread capabilities for learning to learn is gaining popularity. Some see reflexive thinking and learning as being the proper response to the transformation of industrial society. However, this study is not concerned too much with the reasons for learning, but is more about how actors and groups of actors actually learn and the resources at their disposal for learning. The study aims to show that differences in social context do matter, and analyzes the organizational learning process in the political and social transformation of East Germany.

Theories of organizational learning, institutional settings and enactment - introduction, the roots of organizational learning in organization theory, the idea of organizational learning, learning revisited, towards an analysis of organizational learning processes in different social contexts
research design, company cases and methods of investigation - introduction, research interests, preparatory and selection phase, intensive research phase, phase of analysis, concluding comments
trajectories of learning in three East German companies - case study A-integration in a large industrial group, case study B-searching for a market niche, case study C-the creation of "new" markets
a systematic comparison of the cases - introduction, summary
intertwining organizational learning and institutional settings - introduction, institutional tensions in processes of organizational learning and their impact on the micro-macro problem, dissimilarities in the social construction of cultural systems and their impact on the micro-macro problem, concluding remarks and outlook.