Influence Structure and Inter-group Learning Completed Research Paper

Inter-group learning is an important phenomenon in the modern business world of virtual organizations, distributed knowledge processing, and supply chain systems. Here, we examine how alternative influence structures within groups may affect the learning that happens through inter-group interactions. This study uses a simulation methodology with measures related to influence structure, knowledge matrices, and learning-task completion. The results indicate that the level of centrality in a group's own influence structure tends to negatively relate to its learning performance. The presence of an influential individual in a group will slow down the learning (require more rounds of interaction to get agreement), impede the spread of knowledge (learn less of the truth), and increase the chance of group conflict (increasing frequency of learning impasses). Furthermore when two groups both have highly centered influence structures, they are detrimental to each other's learning performance.