Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-tn8tq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-29T02:59:54.120Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 36 - Path Dependence and Routine Dynamics

from Part IV - Related Communities of Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2021

By
Jörg Sydow
Edited by
Martha S. Feldman ,
Brian T. Pentland ,
Luciana D'Adderio ,
Katharina Dittrich ,
Claus Rerup  and
David Seidl
Martha S. Feldman
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
Brian T. Pentland
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
Luciana D'Adderio
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
Katharina Dittrich
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
Claus Rerup
Affiliation:
Frankfurt School of Finance and Management
David Seidl
Affiliation:
University of Zurich
Get access

Summary

Over time, organizational routines are likely to become persistent or even path-dependent. Such a process is obviously influenced by the degree of routinization; by the complexity, inter¬dependency and complementarity of routines; and also by their embeddedness in (inter-)organizational structures and practices. However, the acknowledgement of the tendency of routines to become path-dependent also depends on the theoretical lens used to examine them. Under the conditions mentioned, the classic view attributes a high likelihood of routines to become path-dependent – and thereby become a source of inertia or persistence, if not of the path dependence of a subunit or entire organization. The more recent view of routine dynamics, by contrast, requires a more nuanced reasoning. Against the background of this debate, the chapter discusses what routine dynamics research can learn from studies of organizational path dependence – and vice versa.

Keywords

Routinesroutine dynamicspath dependencepath creation inertiapersistencestabilitychangelearningcoordination
Type
Chapter
Information
Cambridge Handbook of Routine Dynamics , pp. 501 - 512
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aaltonen, K., Ahola, T. and Artto, K. (2017). Something old, something new: Path dependence and path creation during the early stage project. International Journal of Project Management, 35, 749–762.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Antonelli, C. (1999). The economics of path-dependence in industrial organization. International Journal of Industrial Organization, 15, 643–675.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arthur, W. B., ed. (1994). Increasing Returns and Path Dependency in the Economy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, M. (2004). Organizational routines: A review of the literature. Industrial and Corporate Change, 13, 643–678.Google Scholar
Berends, H. and Sydow, J. (2019). Introduction: Process views on inter-organizational collaborations. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 64, 1–10.Google Scholar
Birnholtz, J. P., Cohen, M. D. and Hoch, S. V. (2007). Organizational character: On the regeneration of camp polar grove. Organization Science, 18(2), 315–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bucher, S. and Langley, A. (2016). The interplay of reflective and experimental spaces in interrupting and reorienting routine dynamics. Organization Science, 27(3), 594–613.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burger, M. and Sydow, J. (2014). How inter-organizational networks can become path-dependent: Bargaining practices in the photonics industry. Schmalenbach Business Review, 66(1), 73–99.Google Scholar
Collinson, S. and Wilson, D. C. (2006). Inertia in Japanese organizations: Knowledge management routines and failure to innovate. Organization Studies, 27(9), 1359–1387.Google Scholar
Crozier, M. (1964). The Bureaucratice Pheonomenon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cyert, R. M. and March, J. G. (1963). A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
D’Adderio, L. (2011). Artifacts at the centre of routines: Performing the material turn in routines theory. Journal of Institutional Economics, 7(2), 197–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Danneels, E., Verona, G. and Provera, B. (2018). Overcoming the inertia of organizational competence: Olivetti’s transition from mechanical to electronic technology. Industrial and Corporate Change, 27(3), 595–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
David, P. A. (1985). Clio and the economics of QWERTY. American Economic Review, 75(2), 332–337.Google Scholar
Dobusch, L. and Schüßler, E. (2013). Theorizing path dependence: A review of positive feedback mechanisms in technology markets, regional clusters, and organizations. Industrial and Corporate Change, 22(3), 617–647.Google Scholar
Emery, F. E. and Trist, E. L. (1965). The causal texture of organizational environments. Human Relations, 18, 21–32.Google Scholar
Farjoun, M. (2010). Beyond dualism: Stability and change as a duality. Academy of Management Review, 35(2), 202–225.Google Scholar
Feldman, M. S. (2000). Organizational routines as a source of continuous change. Organizational Science, 11, 611–629.Google Scholar
Feldman, M. S. (2004). Resources in emerging structures and processes of change. Organization Science, 15(3), 295–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, M. S. (2016). Routines as process: Past, present, and future. In Howard-Grenville, J., Rerup, C., Langley, A. and Tsoukas, H., eds., Organizational Routines: How They Are Created, Maintained, and Changed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 23–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, M. S. and Orlikowski, W. J. (2011). Theorizing practice and practicing theory. Organization Science, 22(5), 1240–1253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, M. S. and Pentland, B. T. (2003). Reconceptualizing organizational routines as a source of flexibility and change. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48(1), 94–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garud, R., Kumaraswamy, A. and Karnøe, P. (2010). Path dependence or path creation? Journal of Management Studies, 47(4), 760–774.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Gilbert, C. (2005). Unbundling the structure of inertia: Resource versus routine rigidity. Academy of Management Journal, 48(5), 741–763.Google Scholar
Hannan, M. T. and Freeman, J. H. (1977). The population ecology of organizations. American Journal of Sociology, 82, 929–964.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard-Grenville, J. (2005). The persistence of flexible organizational routines: The role of agency and context. Organization, 16(6), 618–636.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jing, R. and Benner, M. (2016). Institutional regime, opportunity space and organizational path constitution: Case studies of the conversion of military firms in China. Journal of Management Studies, 53(4), 552–579.Google Scholar
Kay, N. M. (2018). We need to talk: Opposing narratives and conflicting perspectives in the conversation of routines. Industrial and Corporate Change, 27(6), 943–956.Google Scholar
Koch, J. (2011). Inscribed strategies: Exploring the organizational nature of strategic lock-in. Organization Studies, 32, 337–363.Google Scholar
Kremser, W. and Schreyögg, G. (2016). The dynamics of interrelated routines: Introducing the cluster level. Organization Science, 27(3), 698–721.Google Scholar
Langley, A. and Tsoukas, H. (2010). Introducing ‘Perspectives on Process Organization Studies’. In Hernes, T. and Maitlis, S., eds., Process, Sensemaking, and Organizing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–26.Google Scholar
Levitt, M. R. and March, J. G. (1988). Organizational learning. Annual Review of Sociology, 14, 319–340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
March, J. G. and Simon, H. A. (1958). Organizations. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Nelson, R. R. and Winter, S. (1982). An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.Google Scholar
Nicolini, D. (2012). Practice Theory, Work, and Organization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Parmigiani, A. and Howard-Grenville, J. (2011). Routines revisited: Exploring the capabilities and practice perspectives. Academy of Management Annals, 5(1), 413–453.Google Scholar
Pentland, B. T., Feldman, M. S., Becker, M. C. and Liu, P. (2012). Dynamics of organizational routines: A generative model. Journal of Management Studies, 49(8), 1484–1500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pentland, B. T. and Jung, E. J. (2016). Evolutionary and revolutionary change in path-dependent patters of action. In Howard-Grenville, J., Rerup, C., Langley, A. and Tsoukas, H., eds., Organizational Routines: How They Are Created, Maintained, and Changed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 96–113.Google Scholar
Pierson, P. (2000). Increasing returns, path dependence, and the study of politics. American Political Science Review, 94, 251–267.Google Scholar
Putnam, L. L., Fairhurst, G. T. and Banghart, S. (2016). Contradictions, dialectics and paradoxes in organizations: A constitutive approach. Academy of Management Annals, 10(1), 65–171.Google Scholar
Rerup, C. and Feldman, M. S. (2011). Routines as source of change in organizational schemata: The role of trial-and-error learning. Academy of Management Journal, 54(3), 577–610.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salvato, C. and Rerup, C. (2011). Beyond collective entities: Multilevel research on organizational routines and capabilities. Journal of Management, 37(2), 468–490.Google Scholar
Schmidt, T. and Braun, T. (2015). When cospecialization leads to rigidity: Path dependence in successful strategic networks. Schmalenbach Business Review, 67, 489–515.Google Scholar
Schulz, M. (2008). Staying on track: A voyage to the internal mechanisms of routine reproduction. In Becker, M. C., ed., Handbook of Organizational Routines. Cheltenham: Elgar, pp. 228–255.Google Scholar
Seidl, D. and Whittington, R. (2014). Enlarging the strategy-as-practice research agenda: Towards taller and flatter ontologies. Organization Studies, 35(10), 1407–1421.Google Scholar
Sele, K. and Grand, S. (2016). Unpacking the dynamics of ecologies of routines: Mediators and their generative effects in routine interaction. Organization Science, 27(3), 722–738.Google Scholar
Singh, F., Mathiassen, L. and Mishra, A. (2015). Organizational path constitution in technological innovation: Evidence from rural telehealth. MIS Quarterly, 39(3), 643–665.Google Scholar
Suarez, F. F. and Montes, J. S. (2019). An integrative perspective of organizational responses: Routines, heuristics, and improvisations in a mount Everest expedition. Organization Science, 30(3), 573–599.Google Scholar
Sydow, J., Lerch, F. and Staber, U. (2010). Planning for path dependence? The case of a network in the Berlin-Brandenburg optics cluster. Economic Geography, 86(2), 173–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sydow, J., Schreyögg, G. and Koch, J. (2009). Organizational path dependence: Opening the black box. Academy of Management Review, 34(4), 689–709.Google Scholar
Sydow, J., Windeler, A., Schubert, C. and Möllering, G. (2012). Organizing R&D consortia for path creation and extension: The case of semiconductor manufacturing technologies. Organization Studies, 33(7), 907–936.Google Scholar
Teece, D. J., Pisano, G. and Shuen, A. (1997). Dynamic capabilities and strategic management. Strategic Management Journal, 18(7), 509–533.Google Scholar
Thelen, K. (1999). Historical institutionalism and comparative politics. Annual Review of Political Science, 2, 369–404.Google Scholar
Tsoukas, H. and Chia, R. (2002). On organizational becoming: Rethinking organizational change. Organization Science, 13(5), 567–582.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vergne, J. P. and Durand, R. (2011). The path of most persistence: An evolutionary perspective on path dependence and dynamic capabilities. Organization Studies, 32(3), 365–382.Google Scholar
Zollo, M., Reuer, J. J. and Singh, H. (2002). Interorganizational routines and performance in strategic alliances. Organization Science, 13(6), 701–713.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×