Organizing Failure
Coupling Social Infrastructures and Personal Experiences
Organizing Failure
Coupling Social Infrastructures and Personal Experiences
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Description
In this book, the authors offer a unique perspective on failure, treating it as an intentional and routine result of organizational activity rather than an event to be avoided.
Through case studies in different organizational domains-including start-up entrepreneurship, platform work, and public policy-contributors analyze the social processes and mechanisms through which failure is organizationally produced as a reality for the actors involved. Based on conceptual reflection and empirical research, the authors argue that the organization of failure takes place in the interaction of actors who take on the roles of sponsors, contractors, and evaluators of a particular activity. Sponsoring and evaluation rely on evaluative infrastructures (procedures and narratives) that are often made invisible or opaque to the contractors carrying out the activities and the research reveals the critical role of sponsors' subjective involvement in organizing failure. The book ultimately demonstrates that focusing on the organization of failure rather than its causes can contribute to a deeper understanding of organized activities in contemporary society.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction by Martin Hájek
Part I: Conceptual Framework for Failure: Activities, Infrastructures and Experiences
Chapter 2: Sociology of Failure: Mission (Im)possible? by Martin Hájek
Chapter 3: Failure in Projects: A Theory of Failure Organization by Martin Hájek
Part II: Organizing and Experiencing Failure in Profit-driven Organizations
Chapter 4: Failure As a Legitimizing Discourse in Start-up Cultures by Henri Koskinen
Chapter 5: Ever and Never Failing Adventurers: Fail-Proof Subjectivity in the Start-Up Environment by Martin Hájek and Kristián Šrám
Chapter 6: Failure Organization and Experience on Digital Labor Platforms by Tereza Klegr and Martin Hájek
Chapter 7: Over-Emphasizing and Silencing Failure as a Governmentality Principle in For-Profit Organizations by Tereza Klegr, Kristián Šrám, and Martin Hájek
Part III: Organizing and Experiencing Failure in Value-Based Nonprofit Organizations
Chapter 8: Questioning the Virtue Narrative: Advocating for a Pluralistic Notion of NGO Failure by Eva Soares Moura
Chapter 9: Failure in Environmental Education NGOs by Ivan R. Cuker and Martin Hájek
Chapter 10: Failure in International Development Projects: Evidence from the Sport for Development and Peace Field by Eva Soares Moura
Chapter 11: A Hard-Earned Non-Failure: Tensions and Ambiguities in the Field of Non-Profit Project Organization by Ivan R. Cuker, Eva Soares Moura, and Martin Hájek
Part IV: The Organization of the Failure in Policy Implementation
Chapter 12: Unfulfilled Hopes and Broken Promises: Theoretical Perspectives on the Failure of Diversity Management in Organizational Contexts by Julia Gruhlich and Andrea D. Bührmann
Chapter 13: Failed Moral Panic and Justification: An Analysis of a Lockdown Event in China by Alice Su and Harry Sun
Part V: Failure in Comparative Perspective: Differences and Similarities in the Business, NGO, and Public Policy Sectors
Chapter 14: Unexpected “Family Resemblances” in Organizing and Experiencing Failure by Martin Hájek
Index
About the Editor
About the Contributors
Product details
| Published | Dec 11 2025 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (PDF) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 296 |
| ISBN | 9798216259152 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 1 figure, 5 tables |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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