哈評雙語 | How companies expain large-scale failure（企...

Creating bold new products requires experimentation, and sometimes things go catastrophically wrong. When that happens, smart firms focus on the opportunity for organizational learning—a process known as sensemaking. A new paper examines a different aspect of catastrophic failure: sensegiving, or how a company frames the event for outside stakeholders, including investors and customers, and for the public at large.

大膽的產品創新需要實驗，有時會造成慘重失敗。出現這種情況時，明智的企業會強調組織學習的機會，即「意義構建」。一項新研究分析了重大失敗的另一面向：「意義賦予」，即公司如何向外部利益相關方（包括投資者、客戶和一般公眾）解釋失敗。

Researchers examined tweets, blog posts, and media statements from the private space companies SpaceX and Virgin Galactic after high-profile rocket crashes or explosions. Both firms ultimately came out with the same basic message: The failures were an inherent risk of their activities, and they presented opportunities to learn. But SpaceX had an easier time overcoming the 「legitimacy jolt」 of its failures than Virgin Galactic did, because of how the companies had previously characterized their endeavors.

high-profile：備受矚目的，高調的legitimacy：合法性，合理性

研究者分析了私人太空技術公司SpaceX和維珍銀河（Virgin Galactic）在廣受關注的火箭發射失敗後發布的推特、博客文章和媒體通稿。兩家公司傳達的信息基本一致：業務本身包含失敗風險，但失敗也是學習的機會。不過，相比維珍銀河，SpaceX更容易地克服了「合法性危機」。這是由兩家公司此前對自身的描述方式決定的。

SpaceX had already incorporated the notion of failure into its narrative, routinely using phrases such as 「if the mission succeeds.」 But Virgin—which has for years sold seats on intended space flights to 「future astronauts」—had downplayed the likelihood of failure, so it struggled more with how to frame its crash. The firms』 responses were also influenced by the severity of the failures: The SpaceX event involved no fatalities, but Virgin』s crash killed one pilot and seriously injured a second.

SpaceX一向在公司話語中提示失敗的可能性，經常使用「如果任務成功」等詞句。但維珍銀河早已開始預售太空旅行坐席，並未強調失敗的可能性，因此合理解釋失敗就更困難。兩家公司的回應方式也受到失敗嚴重程度的影響：SpaceX的事故並未造成人員死亡，維珍銀河的事故卻導致兩名飛行員一死一重傷。

These findings highlight a core tension faced by innovating firms as they craft their first external narratives: Although the presumption of success helps entice external audiences, overplaying that expectation increases the difficulties later if things go awry. The researchers advise firms to seek a point of 「optimal promise」 in those early narratives, balancing 「the zeal of success with the possibility of failure.」

optimal ：最佳的，最理想的

這些發現表明，創新型公司在首次對外傳達信息時，面臨一個重要矛盾：對成功的預期能引人關注，但過分強調成功預期，則可能在業務進展不順時帶來困難。研究者建議公司在早期對外溝通時尋找「最優承諾點」，在「成功的熱望和失敗的可能性之間找到平衡」。

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