Explanations of success and failure in management learning: What can we learn from Nokia's rise and fall

Tomi Laamanen, Juha-Antti Lamberg and Eero Vaara
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Tomi Laamanen: EM - EMLyon Business School

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Abstract: In this paper, we study the changing explanations of success and failure over the course of a firm's history. We build on a discursive approach that highlights the role of narrative attributions in making sense of corporate performance. Specifically, we analyze how the Nokia Corporation was framed first as a success and later as a failure and how these dimensions of performance were explained in various actors' narrative accounts. In both the success and failure accounts, our analysis revealed a striking black-and-white picture that resulted in the institutionalization of Nokia's metanarratives of success and failure. Our findings also reveal a number of discursive attributional tendencies; and thus warn of the cognitive and politically motivated biases that are likely to characterize management literature.

Keywords: strategic management; causal attribution; sense making; discourse analysis narrative; management history (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-03-01
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-02276713v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published in Academy of Management Learning and Education (AMLE), 2016, 15 (1), pp.2-25 P

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02276713

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