In organizations, when failures happen, blame is often assigned. Although a large body of work has examined the effect of failure on learning, we know far less about how the ensuing blame shapes subsequent work practices. In this paper, we theorize that the experience of blame may motivate individuals to change their work practices in ways to avoid future accusations, which may be at the expense of improving work processes to avoid future failures. As such, individuals may learn the “wrong” lesson. We test our theory using medical malpractice allegations of 3618 physicians overseeing 3.6 million inpatient discharges in Florida from 2010 to 2021. Leveraging quasi-random variation in the timing of malpractice allegations, we find that physicians—as compared to their own prior behavior and a matched sample—reduced responsibility by reducing discharge volume but also increased treatment intensity, indicative of defensive medicine. The change occurred after physicians were notified of a malpractice allegation, but not after the alleged negative event, were most pronounced in physicians with lower task-specific status (recent graduates and lower-ranked medical schools), and occurred even for unsubstantiated allegations where the physician was deemed not to be liable for the event. Our findings indicate that blame – intended to increase accountability and work quality– may paradoxically shift learning away from improving work processes. This work contributes to the learning literature and holds implications for organizations with a “blame” culture. It calls for more care and thought into structuring feedback systems in organizations.
