Peers Who Help You Learn More: Three Virtues of Peer-hub Relations in Via-hub Vicarious Learning

Via-hub vicarious learning occurs when the focal organization learns from the experiences of other organizations (i.e., peers) through common hubs with which they have exchange relations, such as manufacturers and service providers. Seeking to enhance our understanding of this form of collective intelligence, this study investigates how the experiences of peers linked through hubs present more learning benefits to the focal firm. In doing so, this study proposes hypotheses regarding the virtues of non-dependent, recallable, and in-honeymoon peers in vicarious learning. This study uses aviation safety data to test these hypotheses, viewing the focal airline operator’s fatal accident as an outcome of learning. Results show that the focal airline operator is less likely to have fatal accidents when peers accumulate more operating experiences. Moreover, this baseline effect is more pronounced when peers are not dependent upon hubs, when the resources exchanged in peer-hub relations are those that hubs (and peers) can fully recall since the beginning of peers’ resource usage, and when peers have a short relational history with hubs. This study advances the theory of vicarious learning by providing conceptual and empirical evidence of how external environmental factors, such as peer-hub relations, shape an organization’s rate of vicarious learning and how collective intelligences emerge in populations.