The model of a flatter internal structure is nowadays attracting great interest as far as the organisation of firms' productive and innovative activity is concerned. Nevertheless, the underlying learning processes still need to be explored. Within this framework, the paper investigates whether the introduction of incremental and radical innovation underlies different learning processes in terms of de-verticalised labour organisational practises, different modes of organising R&D activity and the nature of employees' competences. The empirical evidence provided on a sample of 166 firms located in Reggio Emilia province in Italy points out that incremental innovation seems to be mainly grounded on a problem-solving activity based on learning by doing and learning by using processes, while in the case of radical innovation a learning by searching process seems to be at work.