Skip to main content

Learning and Organizational Failures

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management
  • 229 Accesses

Abstract

Failures are persistent phenomena in human history and are central to organizational innovation and adaptation. Yet there has been little systematic study on the process of learning from failure; at least partly due to unwillingness to recognize failure as failure. Another reason is a tendency to assign blame to individuals. A better understanding of the mechanisms and consequences of failure may give better understanding of essential organizational phenomena such as strategy, innovation, creativity, experimentation and adaptation.

This entry was originally published on Palgrave Connect under ISBN 978-1-137-49190-9. The content has not been changed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Argote, L., S.L. Beckman, and D. Epple. 1990. The persistence and transfer of learning in industrial settings. Management Science 36: 140–154.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Audia, P.G., and H.R. Greve. 2006. Less likely to fail: Low performance, firm size, and factory expansion in the shipbuilding industry. Management Science 52: 83–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barnett, W.P. 1997. The dynamics of competitive intensity. Administrative Science Quarterly 42: 128–160.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barnett, W.P., and M.T. Hansen. 1996. The Red Queen in organizational evolution. Strategic Management Journal 17: 139–157.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baum, J.A.C., and K.B. Dahlin. 2007. Aspiration performance and railroads’ patterns of learning from train wrecks and crashes. Organization Science 18: 368–385.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baum, J.A.C., and P. Ingram. 1998. Survival-enhancing learning in the Manhattan hotel industry, 1898–1980. Management Science 44: 996–1016.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baum, J.A.C., and S.J. Mezias. 1992. Localized competition and organizational failure in the Manhattan hotel industry, 1898–1990. Administrative Science Quarterly 37: 580–604.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, G.R., and J. Delacroix. 1982. Organizational mortality in the newspapers industries of Argentina and Ireland: An ecological approach. Administrative Science Quarterly 27: 169–198.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, G.R., and A. Swaminathan. 2000. Why the microbrewery movement? Organizational dynamics of resource partitioning in the American brewing industry after prohibition. American Journal of Sociology 106: 715–762.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chuang, Y.T., and J.A.C. Baum. 2003. It’s all in the name: Failure-induced learning by multiunit chains. Administrative Science Quarterly 48: 33–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, E.A., and J. Gooch. 1990. Military misfortunes: The anatomy of failure in war. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, W.M., and D.A. Levinthal. 1994. Fortune favored the prepared firm. Management Science 40: 227–251.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cyert, R.M., and J.G. March. 1963. A behavioral theory of the firm. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Denrell, J. 2003. Vicarious learning, undersampling of failure, and the myths of management. Organization Science 14: 227–243.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Denrell, J., and J.G. March. 2001. Adaptation as information restriction: The hot stove effect. Organization Science 12: 523–538.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ellis, S., R. Mendel, and M. Nir. 2006. Learning from successful and failed experience: The moderating role of kind of after-event review. Journal of Applied Psychology 91: 669–680.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greve, H.R. 1998. Performance, aspirations, and risky organizational change. Administrative Science Quarterly 43: 58–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hannan, M.T. 1997. Inertia, density, and structure of organization populations: Entries in European automobile industries, 1886–1981. Organization Studies 18: 193–228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hannan, M.T., and G.R. Carroll. 1992. Dynamics of organizational populations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haunschild, P.R., and A.S. Miner. 1997. Modes of interorganizational imitation: The effects of outcome salience and uncertainty. Administrative Science Quarterly 42: 472–500.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haunschild, P.R., and B.N. Sullivan. 2002. Learning from complexity: Effects of prior accidents and incidents on airlines’ learning. Administrative Science Quarterly 47: 609–643.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ingram, P., and J.A.C. Baum. 1997a. Opportunity and constraint: Organizations’ learning from the operating and competitive experience of industries. Strategic Management Journal 18: 75–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ingram, P., and J.A.C. Baum. 1997b. Chain affiliation and the failure of Manhattan hotels: 1898–1980. Administrative Science Quarterly 42: 68–102.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim, J., and A. Miner. 2007. Vicarious learning from the failure and near-failure of others. Evidence from the U.S. commercial banking industry. Academy of Management Journal 50: 687–714.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim, J., J. Kim, and A. Miner. 2009. Organizational learning from extreme performance experience: The impact of success and recovery experience. Organization Science 20: 958–978.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levinthal, D.A., and J.G. March. 1981. A model of adaptive organizational search. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 2: 307–333.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levitt, B., and J.G. March. 1988. Organizational learning. American Review of Sociology 14: 319–340.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Madsen, P.M. 2009. These lives will not be lost in vain: Organizational learning from disaster in U.S. coal mining. Organization Science 20: 861–875.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • March, J.G. 2010. The ambiguities of experience. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • March, J.G., and Z. Shapira. 1987. Managerial perspectives on risk and risk-taking. Management Science 33: 1404–1418.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • March, J.G., L.S. Sproull, and M. Tamuz. 1991. Learning from samples of one or fewer. Organization Science 2: 1–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miner, A.S., J. Kim, I.W. Holzinger, and P. Haunschild. 1999. Fruits of failure: Organizational failure and population-level learning. In Populations level learning and industry change, vol. 16, ed. A.S. Miner and P.C. Anderson. Stamford: JAI Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sitkin, S.B. 1992. Learning through failure: The strategy of small losses. Research in Organizational Behavior 14: 231–266.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weick, K.E. 1990. The vulnerable system: An analysis of the tenerife air disaster. Journal of Management 16: 571–593.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weick, K.E. 1993. The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The Mann Gulch disaster. Administrative Science Quarterly 38: 628–652.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winter, S.G., and G. Szulanski. 2001. Replication as strategy. Organization Science 12: 730–743.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zollo, M., and S.G. Winter. 2002. Deliberate learning and the evolution of dynamic capabilities. Organization Science 13: 339–351.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mie Augier .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Copyright information

© 2016 The Author(s)

About this entry

Cite this entry

Augier, M., Tiplic, D. (2016). Learning and Organizational Failures. In: Augier, M., Teece, D. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94848-2_788-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94848-2_788-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-349-94848-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Business and ManagementReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics