Organizational routines and organizational change

• Main Authors: PENTLAND, Brian T., GOH, Kenneth T.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2021
• Subjects: organizational routines; organizational change; routine dynamics; Organizational Behavior and Theory
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/6920
• Institution: Singapore Management University

In theory and in practice, organizational routines have a problematic relationship with organizational change. On one hand, routines tend to stay the same when we want them to change. On the other hand, routines can change when we want them to stay the same. Routines are a source of inertia and path dependence (Schulz 2008; Sydow et al. 2009), but they can also drive innovation (Deken et al. 2016). One way or the other, routines are pervasive, paradoxical beasts that are central to organizing and organizational change (Becker et al. 2005; Cohen et al. 1996; Dönmez et al. 2016). It is not surprising that rou- tines appear in other chapters in this handbook (e.g., Chapters 13, 22, and 28: Poole and Van de Ven; Garud and Turunen; Nguyen and Vuori).In this chapter, we discuss current theory on how routines change and stay the same, and the implications of these dynamic processes for organizational change. We focus on the routine as the unit of analysis but consider the implications for change in organiza- tions as well. Throughout this chapter, we use video game development as an example to make our concepts clear and concrete. Game development can be seen as a bundle of closely connected routines for generating novel products. Thus, it provides a good vehicle for exploring the paradoxical quality of routines as engines and anchors in a (n)ever changing world (Cohen 2007).In our discussion, we consider each of Van de Ven and Poole’s (1995) motors of change: life cycle, teleological, dialectic, and evolutionary. While each of these motors can be found in research on routines, fieldwork has identified change processes that do not fit well within these existing categories. By conceptualizing routines as networks of interdependent actions (Pentland and Feldman 2007), scholars in routine dynamics are beginning to create a novel perspective on change (and stability) referred to as patterning (Feldman 2016; Danner-Schröder and Geiger 2016; Turner and Rindova 2018). Goh and Pentland (2019) suggest that patterning should be considered a new kind of change motor for processual phenomena. Patterning is the process through which action pat- terns accumulate and change over time, through repetition. Patterning can reinforce existing paths or generate new paths, so it provides an explanatory mechanism for the paradox of stability and change in routines.