Applying organizational routines in understanding organizational change
نویسندگان
چکیده
Organizational routines are considered basic components of organizational behavior and repositories of organizational capabilities (Nelson & Winter, 1982). They do, therefore, hold one of the keys to understanding organizational change. The article focuses on how the concept of organizational routines can be applied in empirical research to understand organizational change. We identify problems encountered in such research and present proposals for how to deal with them, in order to advance our knowledge of routines and our understanding of organizational change. Developing these themes, we also introduce the articles in the special section ‘Towards an Operationalization of the Routines Concept’.
منابع مشابه
Inertia in Routines: A Hidden Source of Organizational Variation
Traditionally, routines have been perceived as a primary source of inertia, which slows down organizational change and hinders organizational adaptation. Advancing prior research on routine dynamics, this study examines how inertia in routines influences the process of organizational adaptation, both in the absence and presence of endogenous change of routines. Contrary to conventional wisdom, ...
متن کاملLearning How to Change Organizational Routines
In this paper, we contribute to the literature on organizational learning by developing a typology of organizational routines and proposing that effective managerial strategies for changing organizational routines vary depending upon the type of routine and the type of change required. We report here on our ongoing studies of one health care organization where management is developing strategie...
متن کاملDynamics of Organizational Adaptation, Inertia, and Routines: Generic Contributions from a Study of Change
Inertia and routines are important organizational characteristics affecting organizations’ evolution. Empirical research has found mixed results concerning the question whether change establishes change routines that make organizations more malleable or whether transformations inhibit further alterations. Reasons for these results are analyzed in this paper by means of a case study of organizat...
متن کاملThe (N)Ever-Changing World: Stability and Change in Organizational Routines
This paper uses data on invoice processing in four organizations to distinguish empirically between two competing theories of organizational routines. One theory predicts that routines should generate patterns of action that are few in number and stable over time, and that atypical patterns of action are driven primarily by exceptional inputs. The competing theory predicts the opposite. By mode...
متن کاملIntentional Forgetting in Organizations: The Importance of Eliminating Retrieval Cues for Implementing New Routines
To cope with the already large, and ever increasing, amount of information stored in organizational memory, "forgetting," as an important human memory process, might be transferred to the organizational context. Especially in intentionally planned change processes (e.g., change management), forgetting is an important precondition to impede the recall of obsolete routines and adapt to new strate...
متن کامل