Watching the Canary in the Mine: The Impact of Industry-Level Failure and Performance Variance on Survival-Enhancing Learning

安妮·S迈纳-威斯康星州麦迪逊大学-威斯康星州麦迪逊大学。#0001718摘要关注矿井中的金丝雀：行业层面的失败和业绩差异对提高生存能力的学习的影响当代管理理论、商学院课程和对管理者的建议都非常关注企业如何从成功的企业中学习。例如，他们强调要努力复制行业“赢家”的“最佳实践”。 我们认为，组织也从观察他人的失败和接近失败的程度中学习。他们还可以从他们所在行业的业绩变化中学习。我们研究这些想法，通过观察以前的银行破产水平，接近失败的水平和性能变化对生存率的影响，自1984年以来，美国联邦存款保险公司承保的美国商业银行特许经营15年（1984-1998）。我们使用事件历史分析来测试我们的想法。 我们的第一个基本观点是，其他公司的失败和濒临失败可以在剩余的公司中产生“生存增强学习”。 我们认为，失败可以作为一个学习的来源，为他人。我们认为，这种学习的价值是由失败是否非常明显，以及其他公司的经验是否实际上是相关的。这些想法意味着，以前的行业失败水平（以前失败的数量）和接近失败的水平（陷入困境，但恢复的公司数量）将有不同的影响，生存增强学习。我们还预测，银行将以不同的方式从本地或非本地市场的失败中学习，或者从类似或不同的组织中学习。我们的第二个主要想法是，企业也可以从以前的行业变化的性能和极端的成功水平。 企业可以通过从先前的行业经验中吸取抽象的“教训”，从先前的业绩变化中学习。如果这是最强大的学习形式，那么表现差异应该比失败或成功水平本身具有更大的影响。我们的第三个主要观点是，企业不仅从本行业的失败和绩效差异水平中学习，而且还从其他相关行业的经验中学习。我们研究这个想法，通过观察在储蓄和贷款行业的经验对银行的生存增强learning的影响，初步结果表明，行业水平的濒临失败的经验水平提高了银行的生存，在储蓄和贷款行业的失败和濒临失败的水平，甚至控制额外的资源，可能是由于这些失败。这项研究将提供有价值的洞察力的管理人员谁寻求学习他人的经验，以及行业领导人或贸易协会官员谁寻求提高整体生存和繁荣的行业。它还提供了理论洞察组织间学习和竞争之间的联系，以及企业如何从自己的行业经验和其他行业学习。

Anne S. Miner - University of Wisconsin MadisonJi-Yub Kim - University of Wisconsin Madison. # 0001718ABSTRACTWatching the canary in the mine:The impact of industry-level failure and performance variance on survival-enhancing learningContemporary management theory, business school curricula, and advice for managers focus heavily on how firms can learn from successful firms. They emphasize trying to copy 'best practices,' of apparent industry 'winners,' for example. We argue that organizations and do also learn from observing the levels of failure and near-failure by others. They also could learn from variation in performance in their industry. We study these ideas by looking at the effect of prior bank failure levels, near failure levels and performance variation on the survival rates for 2,724 FDIC-insured U.S. commercial banks chartered since 1984 over a 15-year period (1984-1998). We use event history analysis to test our ideas. Our first basic idea is that failure and near-failure of others can produce "survival enhancing learning" in remaining firms. We argue that failure of can serve as a source of learning for others. We argue that the value of such learning is influenced by whether the failures are very visible, and whether the experience of the other firms is actually relevant. These ideas imply that prior industry failure levels (numbers of prior failures) and near-failure levels (numbers of firms that were in trouble but revived) will have different effects on survival enhancing learning. We also predict banks will learn in different ways from failure in local or non-local markets, or by similar or dissimilar organizations. Our second main idea is that firms may also learn from prior industry variation in performance and from extreme success levels. Firms may learn from prior variation in performance by drawing abstract "lessons" from the prior industry experience. If this is the most powerful form of learning, then performance variation should have greater impact than just failure or success levels by themselves. Our third main idea is that firms learn not only from failure and performance variation levels in their own industry, but also from the experience of other, related industries. We study this idea by looking at the impact of experience in the savings and loan industry on survival enhancing learning by banks.Preliminary results show that industry levels of near failure experience levels enhance the survival of banks, as do the levels of failure and near-failure in the savings and loan industry, even controlling for the additional resources that might be available as a result of these failures. This research will provide valuable insight for managers who seek to learn from the experience of others, and to industry leaders or trade-association officers who seek to enhance the overall survival and prosperity in their industry. It also provides theoretical insight into the links between interorganizational learning and competition, and how firms learn from their own industry experience and from other industries.