Relationship Between Organizational Learning and Competitive Advantage in Telecommunications Firms in Nigeria: Evidence from Abuja and Lagos

This study examined the relationship between organizational learning and competitive advantage in selected telecommunications firms in Abuja and Lagos, Nigeria. The telecommunications industry in Nigeria operates in a hypercompetitive environment characterized by rapid technological change, regulatory complexity, and evolving consumer demands. Organizational learning, as the process through which firms create, retain, and transfer knowledge to improve performance, is posited as a key dynamic capability for sustaining competitive advantage. Grounded in the Organizational Learning Theory and the Dynamic Capabilities Framework, a cross-sectional survey design was adopted. The population comprised 480 senior and middle managers in five major telecommunications firms with operations in both Abuja and Lagos. A stratified sample of 240 managers was selected. The Organizational Learning Capability Scale and the Competitive Advantage Index, both validated for the Nigerian telecommunications context, were used for data collection. Structural Equation Modeling using AMOS was employed for hypothesis testing. Findings reveal that knowledge sharing, learning orientation, and systemic thinking are the strongest direct predictors of competitive advantage. External knowledge acquisition from global technology partners was found to have a significant indirect effect mediated by internal knowledge integration capabilities. The study contributes a contextually relevant model of organizational learning and competitive advantage dynamics in African telecoms and recommends that Nigerian telecommunications firms should institutionalize formal knowledge management systems and cross-functional learning platforms. Keywords: organizational learning, competitive advantage, telecommunications firms, Nigeria, Dynamic Capabilities Framework