Nurturing innovation through intelligent failure: The art of failing on purpose

Abstract

Failure, even in the context of innovation, is primarily conceived and experienced as an inevitable (e.g., innovation funnel) or unintended (e.g., unexpected drawbacks) outcome. This paper aims to provide a more systematic understanding of innovation failure by considering and problematizing the case of “intelligent failures”, namely experiments that are intentionally designed and implemented to explore technological and market uncertainty. We conceptualize intelligent failure through an epistemic perspective that recognizes its contribution to challenging and revising the organizational knowledge system. We also outline an original process model of intelligent failure that fully reveals its potential and distinctiveness in the context of learning from failure (i.e., failure as an outcome vs failure of expectations and initial beliefs), analyzing and comparing intended and unintended innovation failures. By positioning intelligent failure in the context of innovation and explaining its critical role in enhancing the ability of innovative firms to achieve breakthroughs, we identify important landmarks for practitioners in designing an intelligent failure approach to innovation.