Abstract
In recent years, organisations have been compelled to adapt and innovate rapidly due to the increasing uncertainty, often engaging in highly risky experimentation activities to survive and thrive. This thesis investigates the phenomenon of failure within this context, emphasising the critical role of learning from failure, as well as the perception of failure as a precondition for learning and fostering knowledge systems at the systemic level. Although failure is traditionally perceived as a negative outcome, it can perform as a crucial trigger for learning, essential for innovation and entrepreneurship. This research aims to unravel the complexity of failure and its implications for organisational learning, innovation management, and entrepreneurial dynamism. The first chapter provides a conceptual analysis of "intelligent failure" (IF), a deliberate strategy where organisations intentionally risk failure to gain new knowledge and innovate. Through an extensive literature review, this chapter explores the constitutive elements of an IF process as a tool for innovation experimentation, disentangling the occurrence of the learning process. The reasoning demonstrates how IF can challenge entrenched assumptions, facilitating path creation and breakthrough innovation in organisations. The second chapter pursues an empirical investigation into IF, addressing the gap in empirical validation of this concept. A qualitative exploratory study of an innovative medium-sized manufacturing firm examines how organisations overcome the competency trap through an IF experimentation lens, and what organisational conditions allow organisations to escape from it. The final chapter shifts focus to the systemic level, exploring the openness to failure within urban entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). How failure is perceived and embraced, rather than concealed or avoided, at the EE level is crucial for initiating learning processes that foster local knowledge systems. Specifically, the third chapter examines how EEs diversity and individual personality traits affect the perception of founders toward failure, encouraging innovative risk-taking and experimentation and spurring the vitality of EEs. An econometric analysis of primary data of founders from European urban EEs identifies the place-based conditions that enhance openness to failure. This thesis contributes to the innovation management literature providing a strategic approach in both organisations and places fostering entrepreneurship. It emphasises the importance of learning from failure at organisational and systemic levels, underscoring the necessity for organisations and EEs to embrace failure as a means of fostering innovation and long-term success through learning.