Who is leaping through failure? The influence of innovation characteristics on learning from failure

Abstract

When firms encounter problems, they struggle to find the best solutions. These experiences encourage firms to learn and can lead to innovation. Therefore, researchers have emphasised the importance of experiential learning. It has been emphasised that not only successful experience but also failure experience has a greater impact on firms to achieve innovation, and paradoxically, failure can be an important asset. However, there are conflicting arguments as to the relationship between failure experience and innovation. This study applies the coarsened exact matching (CEM) method, which is one of the matching methods, to elaborate on whether failure experience has a significant effect on innovation. Innovation through failure is not the same in every organisation. Based on firms' internal innovation-related characteristics, this study also examines which characteristics may produce innovation from failure experience.