Learning from Failures: Why it May Not Happen

Abstract

This study analyzes the outcomes of fourteen strategic failures in a very large European telecommunication firm. The study asks what the company learned from these failures. Does learning from failure differ from learning from success? How does the learning from large failures differ from learning from small failures? Rather disappointingly, the company learned little from its experiences. Why is learning from failures so difficult? What were the key impediments to learning?

Keywords: learning, failures