Thinking About Failing

Abstract

This chapter explores how academic researchers have understood the concept of failure. The chapter focuses on public policy literature to develop an understanding of the relational and contextual nature of success and failure. After a brief discussion on what we can understand by cultural policy and who has a role in its inception and delivery, this chapter considers the ways in which academics have attempted to define what policy failure constitutes and how we might identify its occurrence. This chapter also reflects upon the relationship between failure and learning. Here, we highlight that the fields of business and entrepreneurship have undertaken the most work to understand the opportunities that learning from failure can afford.