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-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-01T20:12:24.499Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 16 - Context, Embeddedness and Routine Dynamics

from Part III - Themes in Routine Dynamics Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2021

By
Jennifer Howard-Grenville  and
Jan Lodge
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

In this chapter, we consider the embeddedness of organizational routines within their organizational contexts, drawing on the original work on this construct (Howard-Grenville, 2005), revisiting its core ideas, and reviewing subsequent work that has addressed routine embeddedness. We find that recent work has highlighted the importance of understanding routine dynamics as influenced by and potentially mutually constitutive with other generative aspects of organizational life. We end with calls for future research on this topic and encourage scholars to further explore how routines interact with other core aspects of organizing.

Keywords

Routinesroutine dynamicscontextembeddedness
Type
Chapter
Information
Cambridge Handbook of Routine Dynamics , pp. 229 - 243
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

Anand, G., Gray, J. and Siemsen, E. (2012). Decay, shock, and renewal: Operational routines and process entropy in the pharmaceutical industry. Organization Science, 23(6), 1700–1716.Google Scholar
Bertels, S., Howard-Grenville, J. and Pek, S. (2016). Cultural molding, shielding, and shoring at Oilco: The role of culture in the integration of routines. Organization Science, 27(3), 573–593.Google Scholar
Blanche, C. and Cohendet, P. (2019). Remounting a ballet in a different context: A complementary understanding of routines transfer theories. In Feldman, M., D’Adderio, L., Dittrich, K. and Jarzabkowski, P., eds., Routine Dynamics in Action: Replication and Transformation (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 61). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing, 11–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boe-Lillegraven, S. (2019). Transferring routines across multiple boundaries: A flexible approach. In Feldman, M., D’Adderio, L., Dittrich, K. and Jarzabkowski, P., eds., Routine Dynamics in Action: Replication and Transformation (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 61). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing, 31–53.Google Scholar
Bresman, H. (2013). Changing routines: A process model of vicarious group learning in pharmaceutical R&D. Academy of Management Journal, 56(1), 35–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruns, H. (2009). Leveraging functionality in safety routines: Examining the divergence of rules and performance. Human Relations, 62(9), 1399–1426.Google Scholar
Bucher, S. and Langley, A. (2016). The interplay of reflective and experimental spaces in interrupting and reorienting Routine Dynamics. Organization Science, 27(3), 505–800.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cajaiba, A. P., Cajaiba Santana, G. and Lazaric, N. (2015). An institutional perspective on routine emergence: A case from the bio-tech industry. Post-Print hal-01298030, HAL.Google Scholar
Callon, M. (1987). Society in the making: the study of technology as a tool for sociological analysis. In Bijker, W., Hughes, T. and Pinch, T., eds., The Social Construction of Technological Systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Canales, R. (2013). Weaving straw into gold: Managing organizational tensions between standardization and flexibility in microfinance. Organization Science, 25(1), 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christianson, M. K., Farkas, M. T., Sutcliffe, M. and Weick, K. E. (2009). Learning through rare events: Significant interruptions at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum. Organization Science, 20(5), 846–860.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Claus, L., de Rond, M., Howard-Grenville, J. and Lodge, J. (2019). When fieldwork hurts: On the lived experience of conducting research in unsettling contexts. In Zilber, T. B., Amis, J. M. and Mair, J., eds., The Production of Managerial Knowledge and Organizational Theory: New Approaches to Writing, Producing and Consuming Theory. (Research in the Sociology of Organizations Series, Vol. 59). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing, 157–172.Google Scholar
Cohendet, P. S. and Simon, L. O. (2016). Always playable: Recombining routines for creative efficiency at Ubisoft Montreal’s video game studio. Organization Science, 27(3), 614–632.CrossRefGoogle 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.Google Scholar
D’Adderio, L. (2014). The replication dilemma unravelled: How organizations enact multiple goals in routine transfer. Organization Science, 25(5), 1325–1350.Google Scholar
Deken, F., Carlile, P. R., Berends, H. and Lauche, K. (2016). Generating novelty through interdependent routines: A process model of routine work. Organization Science, 27(3), 659–677.Google Scholar
DeSanctis, G. and Poole, M. S. (1994). Capturing the complexity in advanced technology use: Adaptive structuration theory. Organization Science, 5(2), 121–147.Google Scholar
Dosi, G., Nelson, R. R. and Winter, S. G. (2000). The Nature and Dynamics of Organizational Capabilities. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Edmondson, A. C., Bohmer, R. M. and Pisano, G. P. (2001). Disrupted routines: Team learning and new technology implementation in hospitals. Administrative Science Quarterly, 46(4), 685–716.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emirbayer, M. and Mische, A. (1998). What is agency? American Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 962–1023.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Essén, A. (2008). Variability as a source of stability: Studying routines in the elderly home care setting. Human Relations, 61(11), 1617–1644.Google Scholar
Feldman, M. S. (2000). Organizational routines as a source of continuous change. Organization Science, 11(6), 611–629.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
George, G., Howard-Grenville, J., Joshi, A. and Tihanyi, L. (2016). Understanding and tackling societal grand challenges through management research. Academy of Management Journal, 59(6), 1880–1895.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gersick, C. J. and Hackman, J. R. (1990). Habitual routines in task-performing groups. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 47(1), 65–97.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Oxford: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Glaser, V. (2017). Design performances: How organizations inscribe artifacts to change routines. Academy of Management Journal, 60(6), 2126–2154.Google Scholar
Howard-Grenville, J. (2005). The persistence of flexible organizational routines: The role of agency and organizational context. Organization Science, 16(6), 563–727.Google Scholar
Howard-Grenville, J. A. and Rerup, C. (2017). A process perspective on organizational routines. In Langley, A. and Tsoukas, H., eds., Handbook of Process Organizational Studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 323–339.Google Scholar
Howard-Grenville, J., Rerup, C., Langley, A. and Tsoukas, H. (2016). Introduction. 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. 1–22.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
Latour, B. (1987). Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lawrence, T. B. and Dover, G. (2015). Place and institutional work: Creating housing for the hard-to-house. Administrative Science Quarterly, 60(3), 371–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawrence, T. B. and Phillips, N. (2019). Constructing Organizational Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
LeBaron, C., Christianson, M. K., Garrett, L. and Ilan, R. (2016). Coordinating flexible performance during everyday work: An ethnomethodological study of handoff routines. Organization Science, 27(3), 514–534.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lübcke, T., Steigenberger, N., Wilhelm, H. and Maurer, I. (2019). How core actors coordinate distal actors in organizational routines. Proceedings of the 79th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. Boston.Google Scholar
Mutch, A. (2016). Bringing history into the study of routines: Contextualizing performance. Organization Studies, 37(8), 1171–1188.Google Scholar
Nelson, R. R. and Winter, S. G. (1982). An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Nigam, A., Huising, R. and Golden, B. (2016). Explaining the selection of routines for change during organizational search. Administrative Science Quarterly, 61(4), 551–583.Google Scholar
Orlikowski, W. J. (1992). The duality of technology: Rethinking the concept of technology in organizations. Organization Science, 3(3), 398–427.Google Scholar
Orlikowski, W. J. and Scott, S. V. (2008). Sociomateriality: Challenging the separation of technology, work and organization. Academy of Management Annals, 2(1), 433–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parmigiani, A. and Howard-Grenville, J. (2011). Routines revisited: Exploring the capabilities and practice perspectives. Academy of Management Annals, 5(1), 413–453.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pentland, B. T., Hærem, T. and Hillison, D. (2011). The (n)ever-changing world: Stability and change in organizational routines. Organization Science, 22(6), 1369–1383.Google Scholar
Pentland, B. T. and Rueter, H. H. (1994). Organizational routines as grammars of action. Administrative Science Quarterly, 39(3), 484–510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, N. and Lawrence, T. B. (2012). The turn to work in organization and management theory: Some implications for strategic organization. Strategic Organization, 10(3), 223–230.Google Scholar
Rerup, C. and Feldman, M. S. (2011). Routines as a source of change in organizational schemata: The role of trial-and-error learning. Academy of Management Journal, 54(3), 577–610.Google Scholar
Rogers, K. M., Corley, K. G. and Ashforth, B. E. (2017). Seeing more than orange: Organizational respect and positive identity transformation in a prison context. Administrative Science Quarterly, 62(2), 219–269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Royer, I. and Daniel, A. (2019). Organizational routines and institutional maintenance: The influence of legal artifacts. Journal of Management Inquiry, 28(2), 204–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sele, K. and Grand, S. (2016). Unpacking the dynamics of ecologies of routines: Mediators and their generative effects in routine interactions. Organization Science, 27(3), 722–738.Google Scholar
Sewell, W. (1992). A theory of structure: Duality, agency, and transformation. American Journal of Sociology, 98(1), 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spee, P., Jarzabkowski, P. and Smets, M. (2016). The influence of routine interdependence and skillful accomplishment on the coordination of standardizing and customizing. Organization Science, 27(3), 759–781.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, S. F. and Fern, M. J. (2012). Examining the stability and variability of routine performances: The effects of experience and context change. Journal of Management Studies, 49(8), 1407–1434.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, S. F. and Rindova, V. P. (2018). Watching the clock: Action timing, patterning, and routine performance. Academy of Management Journal, 61(4), 1253–1280.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
×