Embracing Failure: A Cultural-computational Analysis of Failure Narrative Strategies in Entrepreneurship

• In Event: 3424 - Entrepreneurs, Managers, and Their Environments

Abstract

Failure narratives are common across contexts. From businesses to products, to campaigns and human lives, failure narratives attempt to make sense of the unexpected and re-position the fallen. Yet, failure narratives are paradoxical in that they expose the author to stigmatization. We can begin to understand how failure narrative authors navigate sensemaking and stigma by focusing on one important audience: peers. Authors narrate failure to peers because they are familiar enough with the problem but not too familiar to be affected by it. In this study, we explore how authors narrate failure to peers. We use a context where failure is prevalent: entrepreneurship. We take advantage of the new phenomenon of online startup postmortems and the digital traces they leave. To understand how entrepreneurs narrate failure to peers, we apply computational methods to a cultural analysis of postmortems. We find that entrepreneurs use two dominant postmortem styles to narrate failure to peers: personal reflection and business analysis. These narrative styles may have important implications for community access and career outcomes.

Author

• Jessica J. Santana, Stanford University