Learning from My Successes and from Others' Failures: Evidence from Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery

D.  KC; B.  Staats; F.  Gino

Article | Management Science | November 2013

Learning from My Successes and from Others' Failures: Evidence from Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery

by D. KC, B. Staats and F. Gino

Abstract

Learning from past experience is central to an organization's adaptation and survival. A key dimension of prior experience is whether an outcome was successful or unsuccessful. While empirical studies have investigated the effects of success and failure in organizational learning, to date the phenomenon has received little attention at the individual level. Drawing on attribution theory in psychology, we investigate how individuals learn from their own past experiences with both failure and success and from the experiences of others. For our empirical analyses, we use ten years of data from 71 cardiothoracic surgeons who completed over 6,500 procedures using a new technology for cardiac surgery. We find that individuals learn more from their own successes than from their own failures but learn more from the failures of others than from others' successes. We also find that individuals' prior successes and others' failures can help individuals overcome their inability to learn from their own failures. Together, these findings offer both theoretical and practical insights into how individuals learn directly from their prior experience and indirectly from the experiences of others.

Keywords: failure; healthcare; health care; learning; quality; knowledge work; attribution theory; Quality; Success; Medical Specialties; Health Care and Treatment; Failure; Learning; Health Industry;

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KC, D., B. Staats, and F. Gino. "Learning from My Successes and from Others' Failures: Evidence from Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery." Management Science 59, no. 11 (November 2013): 2435–2449.

Air pollution is a serious problem that influences billions of people globally. Although the health and environmental costs of air pollution are well known, the present research investigates its ethical costs. We propose that air pollution can increase criminal and unethical behavior by increasing anxiety. Analysis of a 9-year panel of 9,360 U.S. cities found that air pollution predicted six different categories of crime; these analyses accounted for a comprehensive set of control variables (e.g., city and year fixed effects, population, law enforcement) and survived various robustness checks (e.g., non-parametric bootstrapped standard errors, balanced panel). Three subsequent experiments involving American and Indian participants established the causal effect of psychologically experiencing a polluted vs. clean environment on unethical behavior. Consistent with our theoretical perspective, anxiety mediated this effect. Air pollution not only corrupts people’s physical health, but can also contaminate their morality.

Article | Management Science | February 2018

Maintaining Beliefs in the Face of Negative News: The Moderating Role of Experience

Bradley R. Staats, Diwas S. KC and F. Gino

Many models in operations management involve dynamic decision making that assumes optimal updating in response to information revelation. However, behavioral theory suggests that rather than updating their beliefs, individuals may persevere in their prior beliefs. In particular, we examine how individuals’ prior experiences and the experiences of those around them alter their belief perseverance in operational decisions after the revelation of negative news. We draw on an exogenous announcement of negative news by the Food and Drug Administration and explore how it affects interventional cardiologists deciding between two types of cardiac stents. Analyzing 147,000 choices over six years, we find that individuals do respond to negative news by using the focal production tool less often. However, we find that both individuals’ own experiences and others’ experiences alter their responses. Moreover, although individual and other experience act as substitutes prior to negative news, we find that this substitution curtails significantly following the negative announcement. Finally, we find that experience leads doctors to discount negative news more rapidly over time. Two lab studies replicate our main findings and show that behavioral biases due to differences in perceptions of expertise drive the effect. Our research contributes not only to operations research, but also to the practice of health care and operations.

Keywords: Information; Announcements; Service Operations; Decision Making; Medical Specialties; Experience and Expertise; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry;

Citation:

Staats, Bradley R., Diwas S. KC, and F. Gino. "Maintaining Beliefs in the Face of Negative News: The Moderating Role of Experience." Management Science 64, no. 2 (February 2018): 804–824. View Details

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Learning from My Successes and from Others' Failures: Evidence from Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery

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