Coping with errors in organizations: Challenges, opportunities, and frontiers for operations management research

Abstract

Errors prevail in various aspect of our lives such as physical safety, organizational success, financial outcomes, and even the political arena. For this reason, errors merit study in their own right as an important phenomenon of growing theoretical and managerial significance. Although much has been written in the past few decades about product life cycles, efficiency, quality control, and learning in organizations, error research has yet to be at the center stage of organizational science and practice, and our understanding of error-coping strategies remains limited. Our aim in this monograph is to present and integrate various cutting-edge theoretical frameworks and methodologies from the operations management and organizational research literatures. By promoting a dialogue between two primary business disciplines, we hope to illuminate some promising paths for the integration of specific approaches and diverse disciplinary backgrounds. Through the development of learning exchanges within OM and between OM and organizational research methodologies, we strive to help managerial practitioners and policy makers to build a body of knowledge on errors that is more visible, inspectable, systematic, and influential on their daily practice. The ultimate goals are centered on reducing adverse error consequences while, also importantly, capitalizing on opportunities for positive outcomes such as innovation and learning.