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Friday Nov. 12th, 9:00 - 10:15am, BeijingTime
Abstract: To gain the necessary resources and support to thrive and survive, firms usually craft their initial narratives to suggest future success rather than acknowledge the possibility of failure. However, failing to appropriately account for the possibility of innovation failure may have a detrimental effect. In the event of an innovation failure, the firm likely will face the need to reconcile its initial narrative with the failure occurrence. At the same time, raising the possibility of failure may lead external audiences to withhold or withdraw resources vital to the firm’s success, even before a failure materializes. By analyzing a case of catastrophic innovation failure at Virgin Galactic in the private space industry, we identify a tension inherent to the crafting of organizational narratives for innovating firms, between promising future success (which elicits external audiences’ support) and acknowledging the possibility of failure (which may initially deter them). Our findings indicate a need for innovating firms to proactively manage this tension between risk and promise into their external narratives even before the occurrence of catastrophic failures, balancing the potential of success with the possibility of failure.
Speaker: Prof. Sen Chai from ESSEC Business School.
https://www.sen-chai.com/
Dr. Chai earned her Ph.D. in technology and operation management from Harvard University. Her current projects focus on understanding why breakthoughs are missed, the process by which researchers or teams of researchers in firms and universities conceive of commercially successful ideas, and the effect of twitter as well as the role of physical and virtual temporary colocation as vehicles for collaboration. Her work has been published in Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, as well as Research Policy.