Failing to learn and learning to fail (intelligently): How great organizations put failure to work to improve and innovate (free access) by Mark D. Cannon, Vanderbilt University and Amy C. Edmondson, Harvard University.
Research paper - February 5, 2004. All rights reserved.

The idea that people and the organizations in which they work should learn from failure has great popular support and even seems obvious. However, organizations that systematically and effectively learn from failure are very rare. This paper provides insight into what makes learning from failure so difficult to put into practice – that is, we address the question of why organizations fail to learn from failure. We identify pernicious barriers embedded in both technical and social systems that make collective learning processes unusual in organizations, and present recommendations for what managers can do to overcome these barriers.