# Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning

*March · Team Learning · Organization Science · 1991 · Paywalled*

Introduced the exploration/exploitation distinction as the central tension in organisational learning: exploration involves search, discovery, and variation; exploitation involves refinement, efficiency, and implementation of known approaches. March showed that the two compete for scarce resources and that organisations systematically under-invest in exploration because exploitation produces more certain, proximate returns. The distinction is load-bearing throughout the team learning literature — reflexive and vicarious learning are broadly exploitative, experimental and contextual learning exploratory — and has implications for PS: a psychologically safe environment is necessary for exploration but may also enable the more comfortable exploitation of existing knowledge.

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- **View the source paper:** https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2.1.71
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