Organizational Learning: How to Learn From Failure and Success

Abstract

While the organizational learning literature dates back to the 1960s, a new stream of research examining how organizations learn from success or failure has developed over the last 20 years. The purpose of this review is first to organize and integrate the literature on organizational learning from failure and success, and then to identify gaps in the current state of knowledge prompting new directions for future research. To this end, I organize the literature into three streams: learning from direct experience, learning from indirect experience, and learning from extraordinary events. In organizing the literature in this way, several directions for future research became clear including a need to develop our understanding of both the content of the learning that occurs and the role that emotions play in learning processes.

Keywords: organizational learning, success, failure, direct learning, indirect learning, experiential, vicarious, learning from rare events, entrepreneurship, performance