دانلود رایگان مقاله یادگیری توسط شکست. تمرین تجربی در اطلاعات CIS

abstract

Failure to innovate has been only recently recognized as one of the key elements in determining successful firms’ innovative performance. However, as this literature focuses only on the determinants of firms’ failure, it neglects the role of failure in spurring innovative activity. In this paper, the relationship between innovative performance and failure to innovate is empirically tested, through a two step econometric model, on the 2008 CIS Innovation survey dataset. The main results of the paper are, first, that failure is negatively correlated to the firms’ experience (proxies by R&D), and to the acquisition of direct external knowledge (through productive links in product and process innovation). Indirect learning from the failures of similar firms is moderated by firms engagement in R&D and in searching for external knowledge. The second step reveals that failure in turn has a positive impact on performance in term of percentage of turnover from new to the market innovative products. Finally, an additional test is performed on still ongoing innovation (rather than abandoned), and the results show a minor impact on innovation activity.

5. Conclusion

This paper provides novel empirical evidence of the impact that the failure of innovative projects has on the production of innovative goods by the sample of firms covered by the Community Innovation Survey 2008. It shows that the idea that an unsuccessful innovative activity might ultimately have a positive fallout on a firm’s organisation is far from absurd. If firms are seen as learning organisations, their learning patterns are bound to be more stimulated if they are under stress due to negative results. Several articles have consistently shown that, within a behaviouralist framework, firms typically persistin their organisational routines if they happen to be successful in their representation of the outside world, whereas they challenge them whenever those same routines become unreliable.