Healthcare Management · 2003
Why Hospitals Don't Learn from Failures: Organizational and Psychological Dynamics That Inhibit System Change
Anita L. Tucker, Amy C. Edmondson
California Management Review
The research approach
Conducts qualitative field research into nurses' responses to process failures in hospitals and develops a dynamic explanation of barriers to improvement.
What the research finds
Small operational failures can persist when immediate coping responses substitute for organizational learning, gradually weakening effectiveness instead of prompting system improvement.
Why it matters for management
Supports hospital management discussions about service reliability, escalation of recurring problems and turning frontline experience into sustained operational improvement.
Scope & limitations
Qualitative evidence explains mechanisms within the studied hospitals; it does not quantify a universal effect of any proposed management intervention.
