KNOWLEDGE OR SKILLS - WHICH DO ADMINISTRATORS LEARN FROM EXPERIENCE

Is increased knowledge or enhanced skills the primary result of learni ng from experience? This study addresses this question by examining th e effects of experience of administrators and the average experience o f the administrators' units on four aspects of information-processing performance: need for breadth of information, need for depth of inform ation, receiving more information than needed, and receiving less info rmation than needed. That is, the administrator is viewed as an indivi dual learner operating within an ecology of other learning administrat ors. Researchers have assumed that skills (information-processing abil ities gained from learning by doing) are more important than knowledge (the relatively formal and established facts, rules, policies, and pr ocedures within the organization) in predicting how the individual and context effects of experience affect administrators' information-proc essing performance. However, using a survey of administrators in a mul ti-unit organization (N = 415), it is demonstrated that a model that a ssumes that knowledge is the primary intervening variable between expe rience and enhanced information processing correctly predicts both the individual and contact effects of experience on information processin g, such as the negative relationship between individual experience and the need for breadth and depth of information and getting less inform ation than needed, and the negative relationships between average expe rience of an administrators' unit and receiving more information than needed. A model based on skills-acquisition as the primary intervening variable between experience and information-processing performance pr edicts contrary, and hence incorrect, results, leading us to conclude hat knowledge is the primary result of experience for adminstrators. T he experience/knowledge relationship is argued to have implications fo r understanding worker satisfaction and the liability of newness.