Serendipity Pattern

Conceptual Overview and Discussion

The term serendipity was coined in 1754 by Horace Walpole. Walpole derived the word from the fairy tale called “The Three Princes of Serendip,” which tells of three traveling princes who made many discoveries. These discoveries were of things they were not looking for, and there was an element of sagacity or interpretation that took the observation to an understanding.

Serendipity is an 18th-century word that was, for a time, forgotten. It re-emerged in the early 20th century in the world of scientific and industrial research. Why did a concept with such potential disappear for such a long period? Some people blame the intellectual sentiment of that era, which was based on utilitarian philosophy and religion of the time. Attributes such as seriousness and control were valued, and chance, disorganization, and “chaotic” thought were frowned upon. William Whenwell declared that “No scientific discovery can … be considered due to accident.” The re-emergence of the concept of serendipity as used in research is attributed to Merton who, in 1946, wrote an influential paper on serendipity pattern and then teamed up with Elinor Barber to write a book about the word called The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity.

Today, the serendipity pattern is gaining enhanced credibility in research. Nassim Nicholas Taleb's recent book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable is about high-impact, low-probability events. Taleb uses John Stuart Mill's metaphor of the very rare black swan to show why these serendipitous occurrences may be important in research. It is the rare, the outliers (the black swans), that may become the most relevant and important findings for case study researchers. Simply put, with serendipity what researchers do not know becomes far more relevant than what they do know.

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