This year marked the 31st Annual Association of Marketing Theory and Practice (AMTP) conference. The conference was held at Hilton Head, South Carolina, US, during 15-18 March, as well as virtually, for those of us who couldn’t travel to the US.
Photo by Harish Sharma from Pixabay.
The AMTP conference is an academic, international, marketing conference that emphasizes the integration of academic theory with practical marketing strategies. As described on the AMTP webpage (www.amtp.org): “Our conference aims for an encouraging, collegial environment in which faculty and students as well as practitioners can share ideas, build research streams, and develop partnerships for future projects.”
We have received the Best paper award in the Entrepreneurship & Small Business track. It is an honor to receive such an award, as it is a recognition of the hard work my colleagues and I have put into this paper. The title of the paper is: “Fail fast, learn fast: Understanding the process of learning from failure in SMEs” and the list of authors (with affiliations) is the following: Nikolina Koporcic (Laurea University of Applied Sciences; Luleå University of Technology; Åbo Akademi University); David Sjödin (Luleå University of Technology; University of South-Eastern Norway); Marko Kohtamäki (University of Vaasa; Luleå University of Technology; University of South-Eastern Norway); and Vinit Parida (Luleå University of Technology; University of Vaasa; University of South Eastern Norway).
The paper presents a ‘fail fast and learn fast’ mindset, mostly used in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups, which allows and even encourages employees to do mistakes and experiment. The purpose is to learn from those mistakes and use the learning to avoid similar mistakes and failures in the future. In this study, we provided a detailed framework and insights on the fail fast and learn fast process, indicating its three important phases: failure recognition, interactive sensemaking, and organizational adaptation. Each of the phases consists of different sub-activities and different sets of principles for SMEs to consider. The study also presents theoretical, managerial, as well as policy implications. For more details, you can read the paper at the following link: ”Fail fast, learn fast: Understanding the process of learning from fail” by Nikolina Koporcic, David Sjödin et al. (georgiasouthern.edu).
The fail fast, learn fast mindset is of crucial importance, due to turbulent markets where companies operate. As such, this paper might be of interest to Laurea’s RDI experts, as well as students in e.g., Leading Transformational Change Master’s programme.
About the author
Dr. Nikolina Koporcic earned her Ph.D. in Economics and Business Administration in 2017, at the Åbo Akademi University. Currently, she is a Senior Researcher at Laurea University of Applied Sciences. In addition, she is the Visiting Senior Lecturer at the Luleå University of Technology, the Adjunct Professor at the University of Turku, and holds an affiliation with Åbo Akademi University. Nikolina’s research areas include co-creation of value, open innovation, corporate branding, entrepreneurship, business relationships and networks. In particular, she is studying the importance of Interactive Network Branding for small firms in business markets. Nikolina has published 16 peer-reviewed academic articles, 3 books, 8 book chapters, 21 conference proceedings, and 4 Laurea Journal articles. orcid.org/0000-0001-5050-3819
