A Process Perspective on Organizational Failure: A Qualitative Meta-Analysis

Abstract

The question of how and why organizations fail has received considerable attention in literature and case studies constitute a substantial part of the research designs used. Yet, little academic work has been conducted to synthesize evidence from existing case studies on the processes of organizational failure. Based on a qualitative meta-analysis of 42 longitudinal cases studies, we identified four process archetypes of organizational failure: the disruption, the obedience, the illegitimacy, and the paradox track. We explore the relations between these four process archetypes by proposing a process taxonomy of organizational failure. Our process taxonomy extends current theory by suggesting more integrated process explanations and by identifying two rather overlooked patterns of organizational failure.