Turning the Tide: Persistent Search After Technological Failures

Publikation: Bidrag til bog/antologi/rapportKonferenceabstrakt i proceedingsForskningpeer review

Abstract

There is a longstanding agreement in management literature that failures should be tolerated to achieve innovative breakthroughs. However, less is known about how organizational search processes unfold after having encountered a failure and how firms can persist in searching within the same idea in order to fix it. This study builds on cognitive research on scientific reasoning to introduce a theory of persistent search during the discovery of a technological invention. This theory argues that organizations search for the latent value of a fully novel technology by generating alternatives (i.e., hypotheses on how the technology works) and experimenting with them. Biases characterize discovery search processes in both the hypotheses and the experiments. After a failure, solely persisting in searching for evidence is detrimental, but a coupled persistent search in the evidence space and the hypotheses space can improve the likelihood of reaching a successful result for the failed technology. The theory is tested by using a unique dataset of dynamic portfolios of research projects built on drug-development data.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TitelProceedings of the Eighty-fourth Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management
RedaktørerSonia Taneja
Antal sider1
UdgivelsesstedValhalla, NY
ForlagAcademy of Management
Publikationsdato2024
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2024
BegivenhedThe Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2024: Innovating for the Future: Policy, Purpose, and Organizations - Chicago, USA
Varighed: 9 aug. 202413 aug. 2024
Konferencens nummer: 84
https://aom2024.eventscribe.net/

Konference

KonferenceThe Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2024
Nummer84
Land/OmrådeUSA
ByChicago
Periode09/08/202413/08/2024
Internetadresse
NavnAcademy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings
ISSN0065-0668

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