Academic SeminarLEARNING FROM SENIOR COLLEAGUES’ FAILURES BUT NOT FROM JUNIOR COLLEAGUES’ FAILURES? EVIDENCE FROM MICRODATA ON HEART SURGEONS
- Date
- 2019-10-10 ~ 2019-10-10
- Place
- Building no.9, 7th #9701
- Department
- School of Management Engineering
- Major
- Technology/Organization/Strategy
We would like to invite you to participate in Management Engineering (ME) Seminar.
1. When: October 10th (Thursday), 16:00 ~ 17:30
2. Where: Building no.9, 7th #9701
3. Speaker: Prof. Sunkee Lee (Carnegie Mellon University)
4. Topic: LEARNING FROM SENIOR COLLEAGUES’ FAILURES BUT NOT FROM JUNIOR COLLEAGUES’ FAILURES? EVIDENCE FROM MICRODATA ON HEART SURGEONS
5. Research field: Technology/Organization/Strategy
* Lecture will be delivered in Korean.
[Abstract]
Organizational learning research has shown that individuals learn from other individuals’ failures. However, do individuals learn from all others’ failures in organizations? We argue that in organizations with ‘seniority hierarchies’ created based on organizational members’ professional tenure, individuals will learn from their senior colleagues’ failures but not from their junior colleagues’ failures. We test this main hypothesis using data on 288 cardiothoracic surgeons who performed coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgeries in 127 Californian hospitals from 2003 to 2016. We find evidence in support of this hypothesis. In addition, we examine three plausible mechanisms for this finding, which we offer evidence for through statistical analyses and semi-structured interviews with currently practicing cardiothoracic surgeons. Our paper contributes to the literatures on learning from failures, organizational learning, organization design, and microfoundations of organizational performance.