From Failures to Innovation – How Organizations Learn from Failures to Innovate
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Date
2017-03
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Abstract
Experimentation and failures play pivotal role in innovation (Sitkin, 1992; March 1991). Failures not only provide crucial insights about causal relationships when complete understanding of the underlying novel mechanism is unavailable but also create options to choose from for further experimentation. Organizations learn from failures and alter their search based on the feedback (Weick, 1979; Sitkin, 1992; Argyris & Schön; 1978; Austin, Devin & Sullivan, 2012; Khanna Guler & Nerkar, 2015).
Two streams of literature have examined issues related to innovation and learning from failures. First stream of literature has examined whether and how diverse knowledge elements can lead to new discoveries (Utterback, 1994; Galunic & Rodan, 1998; Hargadon and Douglas, 2001; Rivkin, 2000; Fleming 2001; Ahuja & Katila 2004). This literature argues that innovation occurs through combination and recombination of existing elements into novel artifacts. While predictions from this literature provide insights into the factors that may lead to innovation, this research does not provide systematic explanations about processes that precede innovation. Specifically, this research remains silent on how organizations learn from prior recombination attempts that failed.
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Business: 3rd Place (The Ohio State University Edward F. Hayes Graduate Research Forum)
Keywords
Innovation