Lowering the Social Costs of Learning From Errors at the Workplace

• In Event: Professions Education and the Public Good — Paper Session

Abstract

At the workplace, learning from errors can come at a cost: colleagues and especially superiors may take help seeking after making an error as a sign of incompetence. These so-called social costs of help seeking need to be lowered for professionals to learn from others, especially from more knowledgeable superiors. Focusing on the social context at the workplace, this study explores whether an organization's learning from error climate helps professionals to overcome hierarchical boundaries in seeking help to learn from an error.

Authors

• Therese Grohnert, Maastricht University

• Roger Meuwissen, Maastricht University

• Wim H. Gijselaers, Maastricht University