Failure, even in the context of innovation, is primarily conceived and experienced as an inevitable (e.g., innovation funnel) or unintended (e.g., unexpected drawbacks) outcome. This paper aims to provide a more systematic understanding of innovation failure by considering and problematizing the case of “intelligent failures”, namely experiments that are intentionally designed and implemented to explore technological and market uncertainty. We conceptualize intelligent failure through an epistemic perspective that recognizes its contribution to challenging and revising the organizational knowledge system. We also outline an original process model of intelligent failure that fully reveals its potential and distinctiveness in the context of learning from failure (i.e., failure as an outcome vs failure of expectations and initial beliefs), analyzing and comparing intended and unintended innovation failures. By positioning intelligent failure in the context of innovation and explaining its critical role in enhancing the ability of innovative firms to achieve breakthroughs, we identify important landmarks for practitioners in designing an intelligent failure approach to innovation.

即使在创新的背景下，失败也主要被视为和经历为不可避免的（例如，创新漏斗）或意外的（例如，意想不到的缺陷）结果。本文旨在通过考虑和解决“智能失败”的案例（即故意设计和实施以探索技术和市场不确定性的实验）来对创新失败提供更系统的理解。我们通过认识论的视角来概念化智能失败，认识到它对挑战和修改组织知识系统的贡献。我们还概述了智能失败的原始过程模型，该模型在从失败中学习（即，作为结果的失败与期望和初始信念的失败）、分析和比较有意和无意的创新失败的背景下，充分揭示了其潜力和独特性。通过将智能失败置于创新的背景下，并解释其在增强创新型企业实现突破的能力方面的关键作用，我们为从业者确定了设计智能失败创新方法的重要里程碑。