| Iwashita, Hitoshi 2026. Actor-centred unlearning: active actors, memory agents, and an unlearning process in post- [Abstract]. Academy of Management Proceedings 2026 (1) , 13922. 10.5465/amproc.2026.13922abstract |
Abstract
An unlearning process, although tacitly recognized at the conceptual level, has not yet been empirically traced and modelled. The current literature often treats unlearning as a static attribute or one-off antecedent of learning and therefore does not explain how unlearning takes place in an organization; as a process filled with actors and agency. This paper, therefore, explores the process of how active actors continue to unlearn practices in reference to former negative experiences framed as failure. Using an exploratory longitudinal case study, examining multiple cross-border post-merger integrations (PMIs), we identify a group of active actors who create, utilize, and solidify their former negative experiences while facilitating organizational unlearning. We characterize those actors as collective memory agents, who gradually make unlearning organizational. In so doing, we provide the first empirically grounded process model of organizational unlearning. This actor-centred model reveals how collective memory agents repeatedly disregard prior negative experiences and transform themselves from emergent and empowered agents to authorized ones through three distinctive mechanisms: 1) Disrupting, 2) Decoupling, and 3) Insulating formerly institutionalized practices.
| Item Type: | Short Communication |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Business (Including Economics) |
| Publisher: | Academy of Management |
| ISSN: | 0065-0668 |
| Last Modified: | 28 Jul 2026 10:17 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/188518 |
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