Failure is an option: How failure can lead to disruptive innovations

Davide Vittori, Angelo Natalicchio, Umberto Panniello, Antonio Messeni Petruzzelli, Vito Albino and Francesco Cupertino

Technovation, 2024, vol. 129, issue C

Abstract: We analyze how a failure-embracing mentality can lead to disruptive innovations. Grounded in the extensive data obtained from the study of space industry leader SpaceX and its revolution of reusable rocket boosters, we suggest that appropriate organizational processes can be highly effective in generating technological disruptive innovations. Our results mainly contribute to the identification of the foundational elements that need to be in place, as well as to the definition of sequential actions to be executed, for a successful innovation cycle. In the former, the organization must ensure that appropriate knowledge management mechanisms have been implemented, and that the individuals involved are prepared for the innovation process. In the latter, the detection and analysis of failure, followed by an optimization of further experiments and an adjustment of the roadmap, must proceed iteratively and sequentially to build upon the cumulative experience gained. These findings are important because they suggest that successful disruptive innovation is not fortuitous but can be achieved through systematic processes. Moreover, we bring a different perspective to a popular literature stream which to date had focused on why incumbent firms were successful or not in responding to disruptive innovations, rather than on how failure can be leveraged to successfully introduce in the market a disruptive innovation. In addition to the contributions to the learning by failure and disruptive innovation literatures, this work also adds to the very limited managerial studies of the fast-growing and increasingly relevant New Space Economy.

Keywords: Learning from failure; Deliberate experimentation; Disruptive innovation; Space economy; SpaceX (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166497223002080
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:techno:v:129:y:2024:i:c:s0166497223002080

DOI: 10.1016/j.technovation.2023.102897

Access Statistics for this article

Technovation is currently edited by Jonathan Linton

More articles in Technovation from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().