Self-serving bias in the immediate analysis of a failure
Type de matériel :
86
Mainstream management literature regularly highlights the positive virtues of learning from failure. Despite a growing interest in this emerging field of research (Carmeli 2007), management literature has so far not empirically supported this thesis. Instead, the main works on this topic (Baumard and Starbuck 2005; Cannon and Edmondson 2005; Carmeli and Schaubroeck 2008) have strongly nuanced the myth of learning from failure. In this research, we propose to study, in depth, a supposed cause of non-learning—the self-serving bias (Miller and Ross 1975)—and to verify its existence empirically. Furthermore, we seek to explore the relationship between individuals’ self-indulgence and the performance of the organization. We also study how this bias occurs over time. To this end, we chose to analyze the discourse of football coaches (Ligue 1) at a press conference on the evening of a defeat during the 2010–2011 season. Ultimately, our manuscript reveals several interesting theoretical results. First, the existence of a self-serving bias is not confirmed in this article. In addition, we show that the least self-indulgent people are not those who ultimately get the best results on the collective level. Finally, we emphasize the importance of social context in the retrospective analysis of a failure. In contrast, we show that the accumulation of failures and stressful situations over time do not increase the self-serving bias.
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