David W. Lehman

Research to date offers inconclusive and even conflicting evidence regarding whether organizations learn from failure. The present study sheds new light on this debate by highlighting a previously overlooked factor: whether the failure was caused by human error. In attempts to learn from failure, organizational members tend to focus on simplified representations of experiences and, in doing so, distinguish between failures attributed to human errors versus other causes. Our core thesis is that failures resulting from human error attract significant amounts of attentional resources, thereby depleting the limited stock of organizational attention otherwise directed at managing the risk of failures resulting from other causes. We hypothesize that this disproportionate allocation of attention simultaneously is associated with both positive learning outcomes and negative side effects, specifically, a subsequent decrease in failures resulting from human error and also an increase in failures resulting from other causes. We also hypothesize that failures resulting from causes other than human error attract less organizational attention and, thus, lead to weaker learning outcomes. The proposed hypotheses were tested and supported using data from accident reports filed by natural gas pipeline operators with the U.S. Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration from 2002 to 2012. Additional analyses, including text analysis of accident reports, a series of simulations, and a supplementary study, point to organizational attention as the mechanism at play. Taken together, these findings suggest that organizational learning from failure caused by human error produces not only benefits, but also unintended consequences.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop a history-based framework of servitization and deservitization.Design/methodology/approach: The study draws on three history-based management theories, i.e. industry lifecycle, strategic pivoting and strategy restoration, to develop a conceptual framework of how servitization and deservitization pivots influence firm performance in different stages of the industry lifecycle. A series of examples involving configurations and reconfigurations in production illustrate the theoretical propositions.Findings: The proposed framework predicts that servitization pivots positively influence firm performance in the ferment phase, but this effect gradually diminishes as industries advance into transition and mature phases. In contrast, the framework predicts that deservitization pivots negatively influence firm performance in the ferment phase; this effect, too, becomes negligible in the transition phase but positive in the mature phase. Moreover, the proposed framework predicts that deservitization pivoting outperforms servitization pivoting in mature servitized industries to the extent that such pivots are restorative in nature, thereby suggesting that deservitization may represent a strategic opportunity for firms in mature industries.Originality/value: This study highlights the role of history-based management theories in enhancing our understanding of servitization and deservitization.

Organizational noncompliance with legal rules can be consequential. The antecedents of such noncompliance as well as the remediation of it thus remain enduring subjects of research inquiry. However, prior studies have implicitly treated all rules alike. In contrast, we argue that rules are not all the same and that differences between rules might be systematically linked to variations in the likelihoods of noncompliance and remediation across the range of organizations under the purview of a rule system. We consider the role of two fundamental but distinct sources of rule complexity: components (i.e., sections that compose a rule) and connections (i.e., functional links to other rules in the same system). We analyzed data from 81,266 rule-level observations from 1,011 health inspections of 289 restaurants in Santa Monica, California, conducted from 2007 to 2010. As hypothesized, increases in either source of rule complexity were associated with higher probabilities of noncompliance. Unexpectedly, however, the two sources of rule complexity had divergent effects on remediation such that increases in the number of connections were associated with higher probabilities of repeated noncompliance, whereas increases in the number of components were not. Taken together, we suggest that our understanding of noncompliance and remediation can be enhanced by viewing them both as rule-level phenomena. A range of implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Many individuals in advanced consumer economies prefer authentic producers, products, and services. An important but overlooked question concerns the psychology behind such preferences: How do individuals act on authenticity when they encounter it? We suggest that the answer resides, at least in part, in the distinction between two fundamental but different meanings of authenticity: (a) attributions that a producer is true to its professed set of values (moral authenticity) and (b) attributions that a producer is true to its assigned or claimed social category (type authenticity). Although this conceptual distinction has long been recognized by prior theory, empirical studies tend to conflate the two meanings. We provide a brief overview of these two interpretations and, in doing so, argue that they are both conceptually and empirically distinct. To that end, we develop a set of generalizable scales for measuring both meanings of authenticity. We go on to posit that individuals will respond differently depending on which interpretation is evoked. Specifically, we suggest that perceptions of moral authenticity will be associated with higher willingness-to-pay whereas perceptions of type authenticity will be associated with higher online ratings. We then examine diners’ responses to their restaurant experiences across a series of multimethod studies in the field as well as experiments; we also report a replication study in the music domain. Taken together, the findings generally support the notion that individuals’ interpretations of and behavioral responses to authenticity indeed vary across the two meanings of the concept.

The concept of authenticity informs a number of central topics in management studies. On the surface, it might seem that a consensus exists about its meaning; there is indeed widespread agreement that authenticity refers to that which is “real” or “genuine” or “true”. Below the surface, however, there is much less agreement; scholars use the same lexical term but often approach the concept from different perspectives and apply different meanings. This review outlines three fundamental but distinct perspectives found in the literature: Authenticity as (1) consistency between an entity’s internal values and its external expressions, (2) conformity of an entity to the norms of its social category, and (3) connection between an entity and a person, place, or time as claimed. The aim of this review is to critically appraise the various research themes within each perspective, highlighting similarities, differences, and relationships between them. In doing so, this review represents an initial step toward an in...

Organizations normally benefit from being perceived as authentic. Yet an ongoing puzzle persists about self-claims of authenticity: although the weight of findings suggests that individuals will devalue organizations touting themselves as authentic, some findings suggest that such self-claims may be rewarded. The authors suggest that this puzzle can be answered, at least partly, by considering two fundamental but different meanings of authenticity. The authors posit that individuals will react negatively when claims concern being true to a category (“type authenticity”), whereas they will react positively when claims concern being true to the organization’s values (“moral authenticity”). A major part of this reasoning involves the emotional reactions evoked by moral claims. In study 1, authenticity claims made in the texts of 1,393 restaurant menus and corresponding ratings of 449,919 online reviews from 2009 to 2016 were analyzed. Study 2 involved an experiment to examine reactions to the two kinds of claims separately. The findings generally support the argument and apparently help explain audience reactions to organizational self-claims about authenticity.

Organization theory highlights the spread of norms of rationality in contemporary life. Yet rationality does not always spread without friction; individuals often act based on other beliefs and norms. We explore this problem in the context of restaurants and diners. We argue that consumers potentially apply either of two social codes when forming value judgments about restaurants: (1) an apparently rational science-based code of hygiene involving compliance with local health regulations or (2) a context-activated code of authenticity involving conformity to cultural norms. We propose that violations of the hygiene code recede in importance when the authenticity code is activated. This claim is supported by empirical analyses of 442,086 online consumer reviews and 52,740 governmental health inspections conducted from 2004 to 2011.This paper was accepted by Gérard P. Cachon, organizations.