Shame on You! When and Why Failure-Induced Shame Impedes Employees’ Learning From Failure in the Chinese Context

Abstract

The emotional experience brought about by failure, especially the important roles of negative emotions in learning behavior after failure, has received increasingly more attention from organization management scholars. Research on the impact of employees’ sense of failure-induced shame is still controversial. Based on the Chinese context, according to the process model of emotion regulation theory, we have studied the influence of failure-induced shame on employees’ learning from failure and the conditions that have boundary effects on this process. Through a questionnaire analysis of 776 samples from Chinese high-tech enterprises, the results show the following: (1) shame has a negative relationship with learning from failure (2) project commitment alleviates the negative relationship between shame and learning from failure, and (3) restoration orientation alleviates the negative relationship between shame and learning from failure while loss orientation cannot. Our results further enrich the research on negative emotions related to failure and provide a theoretical basis for the failure management of Chinese companies.

Exploring the Impact of Leader Bottom-Line Mentality on Subordinate Learning from Work Failures: A Social Information Processing Perspective

“…In addition, organizational learning is an important path to promote the long-term development of high-tech industry. Based on this logic, some scholars have used such enterprises as research samples in the context of failure research [ 11 , 15 ]. Additionally, the effectiveness of leader characteristics depends on the organizational context [ 57 ].…”

“…In reviewing the existing research, most scholars have explored individual-level antecedents such as individual traits (e.g., narcissism; emotional stability) [ 7 , 8 ], cognitive patterns (e.g., failure attribution; regulatory focus) [ 9 , 10 ], and the emotional experience caused by failure (e.g., shame; anger) [ 11 , 15 ] and other individual factors that have an impact on learning from work failures. However, these studies ignore a key message: as a key figure in the functioning of a team or organization, the leader plays a critical and central role in how employees cope with failure [ 12 , 13 ].…”

“…Thus, the truest failure is not learning from work failures [ 6 ]. The existing literature has examined how individual characteristics such as personality traits [ 7 , 8 ], cognitive patterns [ 9 , 10 ], and emotional responses [ 11 ] affect individual learning from work failures. Few studies have focused on the impact of leader-related factors on employees learning from work failures.…”

Embracing failure: Nurturing learning and well-being in anesthesiology and perioperative medicine

“…63 Shame is a primitive and universal human emotion, 64 and a powerful mediator of the experiences surrounding a failure-whether it be a medication error, communication breakdown, or something else altogether. 65 Shame is known to occur at all stages of the physician's career -from medical student 7 to seasoned attending. 13 Impressively, for many health care professionals, it is not just the failure itself that can trigger shame; the mere anticipation of failure can trigger shame.…”

Are You Dominated by Your Affects? How and When Do Employees’ Daily Affective States Impact Learning from Project Failure?

“…Third, in instances of failure, employees high in project commitment show a strong sense of responsibility to a project that differs from that of the average employee [ 54 ], and in this case, they tend to devote more resources and energy to error management. They derive pleasure from activities such as knowledge-sharing for the organization and actively engaging in team-related endeavors [ 55 ], which can enhance the relationship between positive affective states and error management strategy.…”