Failing to learn? the effects of failure and success on organizational learning in the global orbital launch vehicle industry

Academy of Management Journal

Volumn 53, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 451-476

  Madsen, Peter M ^a   Desai, Vinit ^b  

^a BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77954022932     PISSN: 00014273     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5465/amj.2010.51467631     Document Type: Article

References (108)

1. Abrahamson, E. 1996. Management fashion. Academy of Management Review, 21: 254-285.
2. Abrahamson, E., & Fairchild, G. 1999. Management fashion: Lifecycles, triggers, and collective learning processes. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44: 708-740.
3. Adler, P. S. 2001. Market, hierarchy, and trust: The knowledge economy and the future of capitalism. Organization Science, 12: 215-234.
4. Allison, P. D. 1999. Logistic regression using the SAS system: Theory and application. Cary, NC: SAS Institute Press.
5. Anand, V., Manz, C., & Glick, W. 1998. An organizational memory approach to information management. Academy Management Review, 23: 796-809.
6. Anderson, L. R., & Holt, C. A. 1997. Information cascades in the laboratory. American Economic Review, 87: 847-862.
7. Anton, J. J., & Yao, D. A. 2004. Little patents and big secrets: Managing intellectual property. Rand Journal of Economics, 35: 1-22.
8. Argote, L. 1999. Organizational learning: Creating, retaining, and transferring knowledge. Boston: Kluwer Academic.
9. Argote, L., Beckman, S. L., & Epple, D. 1990. The persistence and transfer of learning in industrial settings. Management Science, 36: 140-156.
10. Argote, L., & Epple, D. 1990. Learning curves in manufacturing. Science, 247: 920-924.
11. Arthur, J. B., & Huntley C. L. 2005. Ramping up the organizational learning curve: Assessing the impact of deliberate learning on organizational performance under gainsharing. Academy of Management Journal, 48: 1159-1170.
12. Arundel, A. 2001. The relative effectiveness of patents and secrecy for appropriation. Research Policy, 30: 611-624.
13. Audia, P. G., Locke, E. A., & Smith, K. G. 2000. The paradox of success: An archival and a laboratory study of strategic persistence following a radical environmental change. Academy of Management Journal, 43: 837-853.
14. Barach, P., & Small, S. D. 2000. Reporting and preventing medical mishaps: Lessons from non-medical near miss reporting systems. British Medical Journal, 320: 759-763.
15. Baum, J. A., & Dahlin, K. B. 2007. Aspiration performance and railroads' patterns of learning from train wrecks and crashes. Organization Science, 18: 368-385.
16. Baum, J. A., & Ingram, P. 1998. Survival-enhancing learning in the Manhattan hotel industry, 1898-1980. Management Science, 44: 996-1016.
17. Beckman, C., & Haunschild, P. 2002. Network learning: The effects of partners heterogeneity of experience on corporate acquisitions. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47: 92-124.
18. Benkard, C. L. 2000. Learning and forgetting: The dynamics of aircraft production. American Economic Review, 90: 1034-1054.
19. Bikhchandani, S., Hirshleifer, D., & Welch, I. 1992. A theory of fads, fashion, custom, and cultural change as informational cascades. Journal of Political Economy, 100: 992-1026.
20. Burger, J. M. 1981. Motivational biases in the attribution of responsibility for an accident: A meta-analysis of the defensive-attribution hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 90: 498-512.
21. CAIB. 2003. Columbia accident investigation board report, vol.1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
22. Cameron, K. S. 1984. The effectiveness of ineffectiveness. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior, vol.6: 235-285. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
23. Cannon, M. D., & Edmondson A. C. 2001. Confronting failure: Antecedents and consequences of shared beliefs about failure in organizational work groups. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22: 161-177.
24. Carroll, J. S. 1995. Incident reviews in high-hazard industries: Sensemaking and learning under ambiguity and accountability. Industrial and Environmental Crisis Quarterly, 9: 175-197.
25. Carroll, J. S. 1998. Organizational learning activities in high-hazard industries: The logics underlying selfanalysis. Journal of Management Studies, 35: 699-717.
26. Chuang, Y. T., & Baum, J. A. C. 2003. It's all in the name: Failure-induced learning by multiunit chains. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48: 33-59.
27. Cohen, W., & Levinthal, D. 1990. Absorptive capacity: A new perspective on learning and innovation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35: 128-152.
28. Cohen, W., & Levinthal, D. 1994. Fortune favors the prepared firm. Management Science, 40: 227-251.
29. Conner, K. R. 1991. A historical comparison of resourcebased theory and five schools of thought within industrial organization economics: Do we have a new theory of the firm? Journal of Management, 17: 121-154.
30. Cyert, R. M., & March, J. G. 1963. A behavioral theory of the firm. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
31. Daft, R. L., & Weick, K. E. 1984. Toward a model of organizations as interpretation systems. Academy Management Review, 9: 284-295.
32. Darr, E., Argote, L., & Epple, D. 1995. The acquisition, transfer, and depreciation of knowledge in service organizations: Productivity in franchises. Management Science, 31: 1750-1762.
33. Davis, G. F. 1991. Agents without principles-The spread of the poison pill through the intercorporate network. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36: 583-613.
34. De Holan, P. M., & Phillips, N. 2004. Remembrance of things past? The dynamics of organizational forgetting. Management Science, 50: 1603-1613.
35. Denrell, J. 2003. Vicarious learning, undersampling of failure, and the myths of management. Organization Science, 14: 227-243.
36. Dillon, R. L., & Tinsley, C. H. 2008. How near-misses influence decision making under risk: A missed opportunity for learning. Management Science, 54: 1425-1440.
37. Edmondson, A. 1999. Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44: 350-383.
38. Eisenhardt, K., & Martin, J. 2000. Dynamic capabilities: What are they? Strategic Management Journal, 21: 1105-1121.
39. Elsbach, K. D. 1994. Managing organizational legitimacy in the California cattle industry-The construction and effectiveness of verbal accounts. Administrative Science Quarterly, 39: 57-88.
40. Epple, D., Argote, L., & Devadas, R. 1991. Organizational learning curves: A method for investigating intraplant transfer of knowledge acquired through learning by doing. Organization Science, 2: 58-70.
41. Felin, T., & Hesterly, W. S. 2007. The knowledge-based view, nested heterogeneity, and new value creation: Philosophical considerations on the locus of know edge. Academy of Management Review, 32: 195-218.
42. Florida Today. 1997. Delta cleared for launch but explosion probe continues. May 1: A2.
43. Ford, J. D. 1985. The effects of causal attributions on decision makers' responses to performance downturns. Academy of Management Review, 10: 770-786.
44. Grant, R. M. 1996. Toward a knowledge-based theory of the firm. Strategic Management Journal, 17: 109-122.
45. Greve, H. R. 2003. Organizational learning from performance feedback. New York: Cambridge University Press.
46. Groysberg, B., Lee, L. E., & Nanda, A. 2008. Can they take it with them? The portability of star knowledge workers' performance. Management Science, 54: 1213-1230.
47. Hannan, M. T., & Carroll, G. R. 1992. Dynamics of organizational populations: Density, legitimation, and competition. New York: Oxford University Press.
48. Haunschild, P. R., & Miner, A. S. 1997. Modes of interorganizational imitation: The effects of outcome salience and uncertainty. Administrative Science Quarterly, 42: 472-500.
49. Haunschild, P. R., & Rhee, M. 2004. The role of volition in organizational learning: The case of automotive product recalls. Management Science, 50: 1545-1560.
50. Haunschild, P. R., & Sullivan, B. N. 2002. Learning from complexity: Effects of prior accidents and incidents on airlines' learning. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47: 609-643.
51. Haveman, H. A., & Cohen, L. E. 1994. The ecological dynamics of careers-The impact of organizational founding, dissolution, and merger on job mobility. American Journal of Sociology, 100: 104-152.
52. Hayward, M. L. 2002. When do firms learn from their acquisition experience? Evidence from 1990-1995. Strategic Management Journal, 23: 21-39.
53. Hayward, M. L., Rindova, V. P., & Pollock, T. G. 2004. Believing one's own press: The causes and consequences of CEO celebrity. Strategic Management Journal, 25: 637-653.
54. Hirsch, W. Z. 1952. Manufacturing progress functions. Review of Economics and Statistics, 34: 143-155.
55. Hoffman, A. J., & Ocasio, W. 2001. Not all events are attended equally: Toward a middle-range theory of industry attention to external events. Organization Science, 12: 414-434
56. Huber, G. P. 1991. Organizational learning: The contributing processes and the literatures. Organization Science, 2: 88-115.
57. Huckman, R. S., & Pisano, G. P. 2006. The firm specificity of individual performance: Evidence from cardiac surgery. Management Science, 52: 473-488.
58. Ingram, P., & Baum, J. A. 1997. Chain affiliation and the failure of Manhattan hotels, 1898-1980. Administrative Science Quarterly, 42: 68-102.
59. Judge, G. G., Griffiths, W. E., Hill, R. C., Lutkepohl, H., & Lee T. C. 1985. The theory and practice of econometrics (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley.
60. Katila, R., Rosenberger, J. D., & Eisenhardt, K. M. 2008. Swimming with sharks: Technology ventures, defense mechanisms and corporate relationships. Administrative Science Quarterly, 53: 295-332.
61. Kim, J. Y. 2000. Crash test without dummies: A longitudinal study of interorganizational learning from failure experience in the U.S. commercial banking industry, 1984-1998. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
62. Kim, J. Y., & Miner, A. S. 2007. Vicarious learning from the failures and near-failures of others: Evidence from the U.S. commercial banking industry. Academy of Management Journal, 50: 687-714
63. Kogut, B., & Zander, U. 1996. What firms do? Coordination, identity, and learning. Organization Science, 7: 502-518.
64. Kraatz, M. S., & Moore, J. H. 2002. Executive migration and institutional change. Academy of Management Journal, 45: 120-143.
65. Langer, E. J. 1989. Mindfulness. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
66. Lant, T. K. 1992. Aspiration level adaptation: An empirical exploration. Management Science, 38: 623-644.
67. Launius, R. D., & Jenkins, D. R. 2002. To reach the high frontier. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
68. Levinthal, D., & March, J. G. 1981. A model of adaptive organizational search. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2: 307-333.
69. Levinthal, D., & March, J. G. 1993. The myopia of learning. Strategic Management Journal, 14: 95-112.
70. Levitt, B., & March, J. G. 1988. Organizational learning. In W. R. Scott (Ed.), Annual review of sociology, vol.14: 319-340. Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews.
71. Louis, M. R., & Sutton, R. I. 1991. Switching cognitive gears: From habits of mind to active thinking. Human Relations, 44: 55-76.
72. Madsen, P., Desai, V., Roberts, K., & Wong, D. 2006. Mitigating hazards through continuing design: The birth and evolution of a pediatric intensive care unit. Organization Science, 17: 239-248.
73. Manski, C. F. 1993. Identification of endogenous social effects: The reflection problem. Review of Economic Studies, 60: 531-542.
74. March, J. G. 1981. Footnotes to organizational change. Administrative Science Quarterly, 26: 563-577.
75. March J. G. 1991. Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning. Organization Science, 2: 71-87.
76. March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. 1976. Ambiguity and choice in organizations. Bergen, Norway: Universitetsforlaget.
77. March J. G., & Shapira, Z. 1992. Variable risk preferences and the focus of attention. Psychological Review, 99: 172-183.
78. March, J. G., & Simon, H. 1958. Organizations. New York: Wiley.
79. March, J. G., Sproull, L. S., & Tamuz, M. 1991. Learning from samples of one or fewer. Organization Science, 2: 1-14.
80. Miner, A. S., & Haunschild, P. R. 1995. Population level learning. In L. L. Cummings & B. M. Staw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior, vol.17: 115-166. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
81. Miner, A. S., Kim, J., Holzinger, I. W., & Haunschild, P. 1999. Fruits of failure: Organizational failure and population-level learning. In A. S. Miner & P. Anderson (Eds.), Advances in strategic management, vol.16: 187-220. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
82. Morris, M. W., & Moore, P. C. 2000. The lessons we (don't) learn: Counterfactual thinking and organizational accountability after a close call. Administrative Science Quarterly, 45: 737-765.
83. Nelson, R. R., & Winter, S. G., 1982. An evolutionary theory of economic change. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.
84. Pisano, G. P., Bohmer, R. M., & Edmondson, A. C. 2001. Organizational differences in rates of learning: Evidence from the adoption of minimally invasive cardiac surgery. Management Science, 47: 752-768.
85. Rapping, L. 1965. Learning and World War II production functions. Review of Economics and Statistics, 47: 81-86.
86. Ross, L., Greene, D., & House, P. 1976. The "false consensus effect": An egocentric bias in social perception and attribution processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13: 279-301.
87. Ross, M., & Sicoly, F. 1979. Egocentric biases in availability and attribution. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37: 322-336.
88. Sagan, S. D. 1993. The limits of safety: Organizations, accidents, and nuclear weapons. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
89. Schein, E. H. 1985. Organizational culture and leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
90. Simon, H. 1991. Bounded rationality and organizational learning. Organization Science, 2: 125-134.
91. Sitkin, S. B. 1992. Learning through failure: The strategy of small losses. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior, vol.14: 231-266. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
92. Staw, B. M., & Ross, J. 1987. Behavior in escalation situations-antecedents, prototypes, and solutions. In L. L. Cummings & B. M. Staw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior, vol.9: 39-78. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
93. Strang, D., & Macy, M. W. 2001. In search of excellence: Fads, success stories, and adaptive emulation. American Journal of Sociology, 107: 147-182.
94. Suchman, M. C. 1995. Managing legitimacy-Strategic and institutional approaches. Academy of Management Review, 20: 571-610.
95. Tax, S. S., & Brown, S. W. 1998. Recovering and learning from service failure. Sloan Management Review, 40(1): 75-88.
96. Thompson, P. 2007. How much did the liberty shipbuilders forget? Management Science, 53: 908-918.
97. Turner, B. A. 1978. Man-made disaster. London: Wykeham.
98. Vaughan, D. 1996. The Challenger launch decision. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
99. Vaughan, D. 2005. System effects: On slippery slopes, repeating negative patterns, and learning from mistake? In M. Farjoun & W. Starbuck (Eds.), Organization at the limit: NASA and the Columbia disaster. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell.
100. Walsh, J. P., & Ungson, G. R. 1991. Organizational memory. Academy of Management Review, 16: 239-270.
101. Wegner, D. M. 1986. Transactive memory: A contemporary analysis of the group mind. In G. Mullen & G. Goethals (Eds.), Theories of group behavior: 185-208. New York: Springer-Verlag.
102. Weick, K. E. 1979. The social psychology of organizing (2nd ed.). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
103. Weick, K. E. 1984. Small wins: Redefining the scale of social problems. American Psychologist, 39: 40-49.
104. Weick, K. E., & Roberts, K. H. 1993. Collective mind in organizations: Heedful interrelating on flight decks. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38: 357-381.
105. Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obstfeld, D. 1999. Organizing for high reliability: Processes of collective mindfulness. In B. M. Staw & R. Sutton (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior, vol.21: 81-123. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
106. Wildavsky, A. 1988. Searching for safety. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.
107. Zellmer-Bruhn, M. E. 2003. Interruptive events and team knowledge acquisition. Management Science, 49: 514-528.
108. Zucker, L. G. 1987. Institutional theories of organization. In W. R. Scott & J. F. Short (Eds.), Annual review of sociology, vol.13: 443-464. Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews.