Handling Errors in Public Organizations

Learning from mistakes is essential for effective organizational development and collaboration. Yet, surprisingly little is known about the underlying behavioral mechanisms that determine public agents’ likelihood to handle errors positively, that is reporting, analyzing, and learning from mistakes instead of hiding them from their supervisors and coworkers. Using experimental data from an original conjoint experiment, we disentangle the interaction between error-related, individual, and organizational factors as a basis for error response. In this we advance the theoretical understanding on the micro-foundations of error handling and we help public managers understand their employees’ behavior to foster positive error cultures in their organizations.