Serendipity refers to the accidental discovery of something valuable. It is sometimes presented as an element of organizational learning but has been the object of scarce research. In this paper, I discuss the notion of serendipity in the organizational context, and elaborate a model of organizational serendipity. Four building blocks are considered: the conditions that facilitate serendipitous discovery, the search for a solution for a given problem, a process of bisociation leading to the combination of previously unrelated skills or information, and the discovery of an unexpected solution to a different problem. I also discuss what organizations can do to improve the chances of serendipity.
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Paper provided by Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Economia in its series FEUNL Working Paper Series with number
wp472.