...Jon‐Arild Johannessen; Bjørn Olsen Purpose The purpose of this paper is to uncover processes and the corresponding social mechanisms promoting innovation in organisations. Design/methodology/approach It is the integration of organisational learning, the internal knowledge base of the company...

...: how can social mechanisms be examined from a systemic point of view? Design/methodology/approach The paper investigates, at an abstract level, what is meant by social mechanisms in social systems in Part 1. Social mechanisms and various explanation models are investigated in Part 2, using...