Explanations of success and failure in management learning : What can we learn from Nokia's rise and fall

In this paper, we study the changing explanations of success and failure over the course of a firm's history. We build on a discursive approach that highlights the role of narrative attributions in making sense of corporate performance. Specifically, we analyze how the Nokia Corporation was framed first as a success and later as a failure and how these dimensions of performance were explained in various actors' narrative accounts. In both the success and failure accounts, our analysis revealed a striking black-and-white picture that resulted in the institutionalization of Nokia's metanarratives of success and failure. Our findings also reveal a number of discursive attributional tendencies; and thus warn of the cognitive and politically motivated biases that are likely to characterize management literature.