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Schools are complex and imperfect organizations; thus, it is not possible for school leaders to completely avoid failures. The capacity to learn from failure is essential to the effectiveness of teachers as individuals and for teams and schools. However, it is hardly practiced in most schools. The present theoretical article seeks to offer an integrative conceptual framework in which intelligent failure is conceptualized as an organizational learning process. The purpose is twofold: first, to address the question of why school faculty fails to learn from failure; second, to show how learning from intelligent failure in the school context can be framed as a resource for school improvement.

The present theoretical article seeks to offer an integrative conceptual framework in which intelligent failure is conceptualized as an organizational learning process.

The present study draws upon the social capital theory as an overarching framework to develop a conceptual model that incorporates the learning settings and a leadership tolerant of “intelligent failure” that might enable us to identify the root causes of failure and the kinds of lessons that can be drawn from failure analysis. In the proposed conceptual model, school organizational features combine with a leadership tolerant of intelligent failures to enhance opportunities to analyze, manage and learn from intelligent failures in school settings.

An important lacuna in educational scholarship is that although detecting and correcting school failures is normal, investigating the root causes of these failures or pinpointing the behaviors necessary to avoid their reoccurrence is often neglected in both theory and practice. By integrating research from both non-educational and educational literature, this study may provide a new perspective for school management, since it emphasizes the reframing of intelligent failure as an organizational asset for school improvement. The present study broadens the literature on educational management and organizational learning and provides a new approach for school failures and failure management.

The purpose of this research is to review the perceptions of 359 front‐line management personnel as to why their organizations fail to achieve desired results and to draw lessons for organizational practice on how to prevent failure and improve organizational performance. Managers from 30 organizations were asked to rate the impact that 25 different performance factors have on their ability to get desired results. The results of the study identified a variety of people and leadership factors as the primary causes of poor performance, while factors such as technology, finances, and government regulations ranked significantly lower in the rankings.

Defines the concept of “organisational failure” in information systems (IS) development, and proposes a diagnostic model drawn from research done into IS consultancy firms that develop systems using a variety of methodologies. The research involved a qualitative study aimed at the nature of the development process and the role of organisational issues in this process. The model’s elements and relationships were determined by the research findings. Presents two cases of failure that show how IS failure is rooted in organisational pathology and examine existing failure concepts. The concept and model proposed can be used by practitioners and management before and during a project for diagnosing organisational failure before it interferes with IS development and afterwards for extracting deeper rooted organisational learning from failure.

Based on a review of previous research of organizational learning from experience, this paper aims to point out the notable gaps and unresolved issues in the research area and proposes a “multilevel integrated model of learning from experience”, which could integrate current research findings and serve as the theoretical framework for further investigation.

This paper is a theoretical review.

From the individual, team, organizational and multiple levels, in an order of the outcome of success and failure, this study reviews previous research about organizational learning from experience down to the last detail and points out some of their limitations, including relative fragmented-wise, lack of grope about the underlying motivations, lack of overall framework, etc. Then, this study proposes the “multilevel integrated model of learning from experience”, which provides a systematic and fine-grained framework for studies in this field.

This paper emphasizes that true underlying motivations impelling learning from experience shall be identified and exploration for the antecedents shall be further deepened. Besides, this study figures out that various factors played their parts in the process and outcome of learning from experience through both subjective perception and objective experience. Thus, future research shall distinguish the influence of learning from experience, respectively, into “knowing” and “doing”.

This study is an attempt to review and integrate current research of learning from experience in multiple levels and further differentiates the influences of different experience outcomes (success vs failure). The proposed theoretical model provides clear suggestions of where future research should be directed.

Although the topic of knowledge management (KM) failure has emerged over the past several years, no specific theory has been proposed about the ability of an organization to discover and manage unexpected failures in the organizational capabilities of KM. Thus, the main aim of this paper is to develop a theory of KM reliability by taking into account the availability of existing theory of high reliability for organizations. Furthermore, this study aims to empirically evaluate the impact of a reliable KM on organizational performance by developing a reliability measurement instrument.

The study develops and tests a theoretical framework whereby the reliable KM is supported on its reliability aspects and organizational performance on its financial, process, and internal aspects. Based on a questionnaire, data were obtained from a sample of 254 companies in North America. The measurement model was tested and confirmed by using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The results show that the reliable KM has a multi-dimensional structure as described by the proposed theoretical framework. Additionally, the results underscore the importance of KM reliability in creating conditions favorable for a firm's success.

It was verified that the reliable KM affects the measures of organizational performance, including financial, process, and internal performance. This is useful for researchers and executives looking for appropriate outcomes through the implementation of KM initiatives. Furthermore, this study provides a starting point for further research on KM reliability.

This study claims that a key to successful KM is to create a cognitive infrastructure that enables simultaneous adaptive learning and provides an organizational reliability infrastructure through the management of unwanted, unanticipated, and unexplainable failures in the KM's required capabilities.

The purpose of this paper is to study the phenomenon of organizational change failure through an emic approach. Grounded in empirical examples, the paper unfolds why the phenomenon seems to be missing from the literature of the becoming view (e.g. Tsoukas and Chia, 2002).

Inspired by the methodological strategy of “studying through,” organizational changes are followed through space and time within the setting of a Nordic bank, from where the empirical data have been collected via longitudinal study. The empirical data are generated through a combination of methods: shadowing, interviews, in situ observations and desk research in order to capture the ever-changing phenomenon of organizational change.

The paper finds that organizational changes drift away, either by slipping into the everyday practices of the organization, or by drifting away in time when history is reinterpreted. The paper concludes that organizational change failures suffer the same fate as organizational changes more generally and drift away in space and time.

The paper contributes to the becoming view by illustrating how methodologically an ever-changing phenomenon such as organizational change can be studied. Further, it contributes to the field of organizational change failure by unpacking the fate of organizational change failure when change is natural and slippery in nature. The paper includes reflections on what the consequences might be for praxis.

Proposes to analyze known case studies of information systems failure.

Uses the organizational failure diagnosis model.

Finds that there is the need to assess the organization's “health” prior to information systems development and to raise the organization's actual capacity for systems development to the necessary levels for success.

Previous studying of these cases has underplayed the role of technical problems as the surface manifestations of deeper‐rooted organizational pathologies causing the failure. The usefulness of the organizational failure diagnosis model is shown in recognizing these deeper‐rooted issues and a number of suggestions are made for the prevention of failure.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how decision-maker attributes unfold to precipitate organisational failure. The analysis brings to light how key attributes such as information-processing capabilities and human capital decay interact to bring about business decline and exit.

The study is based on an integrated review and conceptualisation of the literature.

The study articulates how a set of attributes of decision makers, i.e. human capital obsolescence, powerlessness, meaninglessness and institutional linkages, contributes to organisational failure.

The paper concludes by setting out an array of strategies of learning from others’ failures.

In spite of a growing body of research on organisational failure, scholars have placed overwhelming emphasis on ecological explanations and business failure prediction models. The study moves beyond the ecological explanations to offer a more fine-grained analysis of firm-level factors that precipitate business failure.

Studies on organizational failure learning have focused on whether and how organizations learn from failures but have paid limited attention on the persistence of failure learning. This study centers on failure recidivism and answers why organizations would fall into repeated failures after learning from them.

Based on a sample of Chinese publicly listed firms that once recovered from special treatment status, the authors use event history technique and Cox proportional hazards regression model.

The authors find that reviviscent firms with higher interlock centrality are less likely to decline again, and underperforming partners can strengthen the role of interlock tie in failure recidivism. By contrast, politically connected reviviscent firms are more likely to decline again, and this effect attenuates for firms located in more market-oriented regions.

The authors’ contribution comes from the close integration of literature on failure learning and network embeddedness perspective to examine how social networks affect the learning process of failure recidivism.

The study provides important practical implications for organizations, especially those that once experienced failures or are experiencing failures.

Combining organizational learning theory and network embeddedness perspective, the study provides novel insights into answering how firms embedded in different types of social networks affect failure learning persistence differently.

This paper explores critical failure factors (CFFs) in the context of knowledge sharing. It provides further insights into what can cause knowledge- sharing failures, inflexible knowledge-sharing strategies and ineffective knowledge- sharing mechanisms. It also examines how practitioners can reduce or even mitigate such dysfunctions.

A case-based inductive approach was conducted. Data were collected from two studies applying mixed methods. The first data set included nine in-depth, semi-structured interviews with highly skilled personnel from an aerospace and defense organization. The second data source included 375 successfully completed questionnaires from participants employed at the same organization.

The paper identifies six CFFs with an impact on knowledge sharing. It also reveals that managing organizational ignorance can play a key role in generating new knowledge and averting failure. Study findings provide insights into the importance of identifying these failures when sharing knowledge and propose relevant mitigation strategies.

This paper identifies a range of empirically validated CFFs that complement the extant work on the complexity of knowledge sharing and have hitherto not been seen in the literature. It also provides a more nuanced understanding of why both organizations and their people often fail to share knowledge by exploring the role of organizational ignorance.