Jonas Dahl

Over the past few decades, increasing attention has been devoted to understanding how errors and failures influence various aspects of organizations. Effectively managing and learning from failures has proven critical for improving performance, enhancing safety, and driving innovation. Despite this, many organizations face challenges addressing failures, as employees often hesitate to discuss them due to negative emotional reactions. This reluctance creates a substantial barrier to learning and continuous improvement. While existing research primarily explains employees’ decisions to communicate errors and failures through a cognitive lens, the emotional dimensions remain underexplored. This thesis investigates individuals´ failure-sharing in complex business services, emphasizing the interplay between emotional dynamics, cognitive processes, and organizational influences. Specifically, the thesis explores how psychological factors such as cost-benefit evaluations, shame and guilt, individual mindsets, and self-compassion, alongside organizational norms and values, are involved in employees´ decisions to share failures. By addressing these dimensions, the research provides a nuanced understanding of the individual and organizational-level antecedents influencing failure-sharing behaviors. This research contributes to the error management literature by complementing its traditionally cognitive focus with emotional dynamics. Through an exploratory qualitative study and two quantitative hypothesis-testing studies, the thesis uncovers how shame negatively and guilt positively influence perceptions and behaviors in failure-sharing decisions. Furthermore, it highlights how these emotional dynamics are influenced by organizational norms and mindsets, providing a comprehensive framework for understanding error and failure communication within organizational contexts. Practical implications are also presented.