W e investigate how the successes and failures of people who initiate radical ideas influence (a) the inclination to take new personal initiatives and (b) the outcome of those initiatives. Using the data of 1,792 radical ideas suggested by 908 employees in a multinational firm's idea and innovation program, we unexpectedly find that failures, rather than successes, of initiators increase the likelihood of repeat initiative taking. We confirm our hypothesis that involving initiators with prior success in initiative taking has a positive effect on the outcome of a subsequent radical initiative. Our findings illustrate how learning unfolds in the context of radical initiatives and provide insights into how managers can support continuous and superior radical initiative taking.

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Research summary: The advantages of working with a team to develop an idea are well established, but surprisingly, little is known about why some idea generators ignore these advantages by developing their ideas alone. To answer this question, we study two important trade‐offs. First, working with a team provides access to additional resources but also leads to increased coordination costs. Second, sharing the risks and costs of developing an idea necessitates sharing the potential rewards of a successful idea. We use unique data on idea generators and their submission of ideas to an innovation program in a large European company between 1996 and 2008 to show how the two different trade‐offs affect the decision of idea generators to collaborate with a team. Managerial summary: Organizations usually form teams to develop and execute innovative ideas. When people have the choice, however, will they also form a team or will they develop ideas alone? By studying idea generators and their voluntary submissions of breakthrough ideas to an innovation program, we find that the success rate is much higher for team ideas. Although teamwork has important benefits, idea generators will often develop incremental ideas alone and only accept increased coordination costs for developing radical ideas—this is even more so when they have prior team experiences. Moreover, only when idea generators were successful before and—even more so—when they developed that idea alone, will they be more open to sharing the rewards and risks of developing another idea with a team.

Online communities have been identified as key platforms for innovation and knowledge sharing. While many studies have consistently identified that social capital and cultural factors are important for online knowledge sharing, their joint effect has to date received less attention. Addressing this gap helps us to move away from a one-size-fits-all approach of managing online communities to one which takes into account that social capital (i.e., trust, reciprocity, and a shared vision) may have differential effects on the sharing of high-quality knowledge. We therefore ask: To what extent does national culture shape the effect of social capital on perceived knowledge quality? We use survey data from two online communities from Germany and the Netherlands and demonstrate that the relationship between social capital and perceived knowledge quality differs in the two different national cultures, in particular for effects of reciprocity and shared vision. Besides practical contributions, we add to the literature by first integrating a social capital and online knowledge sharing lens and highlighting the moderating effect of national culture. Second, we provide a fine-grained understanding of the influence of national culture on knowledge sharing by delving deeper into differences between national cultures often regarded as similar.

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