Learning from my success and from others' failure
Subtitle: evidence from minimally invasive cardiac surgery
By: Diwas KC, Bradley R. Staats, Francesca Gino
Contributors: Staats, Bradley R.; Gino, Francesca; Harvard Business School
Series: Working paper / Harvard Business School -- 12-065; Working paper (Harvard Business School) -- 12-065.
Publisher: Harvard Business School
Published: 2011
Place of publication: [Boston]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 32
Description: Learning from past experience is central to an organization's adaptation and survival. A key dimension of prior experience is whether the outcome was successful or unsuccessful. While empirical studies have investigated the effects of success and failure in organizational learning, to date the phenomenon has received little attention at the individual level. Drawing on attribution theory in psychology, we investigate how individuals learn from both failure and success from their own past experience as well as the experience of others. For our empirical analyses we use ten years of data from 71 cardiothoracic surgeons who completed over 6,500 procedures using a new technology for cardiac surgery. We find that individuals learn more from their own successes than from their own failures, while they learn more from the failures of others than they do from others' successes. We also find that individuals' prior successes and others' failures can help individuals to overcome their inability to learn from their own failures. Together, these findings offer both theoretical and practical insights into how individuals learn directly from their prior experience and indirectly from the experience of others.
Notes: "January 2012" -- Publisher's website.

Includes bibliographical references.