The harmful effects of cultivating hope by reducing outcome value: Anatomy of a Highly Novel Innovation Project Failure

Abstract

We explore the evolution of hope in a failing process to develop a highly novel innovation. We draw on longitudinal, real-time data from a four-years project, which ultimately did not produce a highly novel outcome. Its prolonged duration, despite a persistent lack of progress, stemmed from the unintended, yet harmful, effects of practices that cultivated hope on the front stage (during meetings). Yet, backstage negative emotions connected to reduction of outcome value accumulated. Hope kept the project going until the novelty of the goal had eroded ambitions to the point that no one wished to invest further effort. We present a model of the process by which hope becomes hollowed out. It shows how hope is cultivated as a positive emotion to keep the project going, but in doing so creates an illusion of activity and movement, until it collapses. We discuss hope as a collective, relational emotion that acts as social glue in situations of uncertainty, yet also carries its own downsides. Finally, we conceptualize unmet outcome value as a form of failure that unfolds over time.

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