Failure and innovation have always been inextricably linked. What matters in today's complex environment, however, is how companies deal with failure from innovation. Although recent research indicates that they are often likely to fail, failure still overall assumes a negative connotation and is thus perceived as something to avoid. By combining prior research on types of failure (spurious vs traditional learning), consequences of innovation failure (trauma vs opportunity), and entailing key influencing factors (e.g., types of learning, dynamic capabilities, time, negative social evaluations), we outline a typology of approaches to innovation failures. We examine and discuss illustrative case studies of companies (Theranos, Space X, IBM, and Pfizer) to demonstrate how they approach the different types and consequences of innovation failures. We also speculate on how their strategies might change over time, how this might affect their learning curve depending on the negative social evaluations they receive, and the role dynamic capabilities play in shaping managerial decisions. These illustrative cases help readers visualize theoretical concepts and recognize the potential benefits and consequences of different types of innovation failures. We outline implications for theory and practice and suggest a future research agenda to improve our understanding of the processes at work when innovation and dealing with failure.

失败和创新始终是密不可分的。然而，在当今复杂的环境中，重要的是企业如何应对创新失败。尽管最近的研究表明它们通常很可能会失败，但总体而言，失败仍然具有负面含义，因此被认为是应该避免的事情。通过结合先前对失败类型（虚假学习与传统学习）、创新失败后果（创伤与机会）以及关键影响因素（例如学习类型、动态能力、时间、负面社会评价）的研究，我们概述了创新失败方法的类型学。我们研究并讨论了公司（Theranos、Space X、IBM 和辉瑞）的说明性案例研究，以展示他们如何处理不同类型的创新失败及其后果。我们还推测他们的策略如何随着时间的推移而变化，这可能如何影响他们的学习曲线，具体取决于他们收到的负面社会评价，以及动态能力在形成管理决策中所发挥的作用。这些说明性案例帮助读者形象化理论概念，并认识到不同类型创新失败的潜在好处和后果。我们概述了理论和实践的含义，并提出了未来的研究议程，以提高我们对创新和处理失败的工作流程的理解。