Examining the Stability and Variability of Routine Performances: The Effects of Experience and Context Change

Journal of Management Studies

Volumn 49, Issue 8, 2012, Pages 1407-1434

  Turner, Scott F ^a   Fern, Michael J ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA   (United States)

^b Intigi Inc   (United States)

Author keywords

Agency; Context dependence; Experience; Generative; Micro foundations; Routines

Indexed keywords

EID: 84869487552     PISSN: 00222380     EISSN: 14676486     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2012.01061.x     Document Type: Article

References (85)

1. Aarts, H., Verplanken, B. and Knippenberg, V. (1998). 'Predicting behavior from actions in the past: repeated decision making or a matter of habit?. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 28, 1355-74.
2. Abbott, A. and Hrycak, A. (1990). 'Measuring resemblance in sequence data: an optimal matching analysis of musicians' careers. American Journal of Sociology, 96, 144-85.
3. Abell, P., Felin, T. and Foss, N. (2008). 'Building micro-foundations for the routines, capabilities, and performance links. Managerial and Decision Economics, 29, 489-502.
4. Adler, P. S., Goldoftas, B. and Levine, D. I. (1999). 'Flexibility versus efficiency? A case study of model changeovers in the Toyota production system. Organization Science, 10, 43-68.
5. Aiken, L. S. and West, S. G. (1991). Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
6. Amabile, T. (1983). The Social Psychology of Creativity. New York: Springer-Verlag.
7. Ancona, D. G., Okhuysen, G. A. and Perlow, F. A. (2001). 'Taking time to integrate temporal research. Academy of Management Review, 26, 512-29.
8. Argote, L. (1999). Organizational Learning. Norwell, MA: Kluwer.
9. Argote, L. and Greve, H. R. (2007). ' A Behaviorial Theory of the Firm - 40 years and counting: introduction and impact. Organization Science, 18, 337-49.
10. Argote, L. and Todorova, G. (2007). 'Organizational learning. International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 22, 193-234.
11. Bamberger, P. (2008). 'Beyond contextualization: using context theories to narrow the micro-macro gap in management research. Academy of Management Journal, 51, 839-46.
12. Bapuji, H., Hora, M. and Saeed, A. M. (2012). 'Intentions, intermediaries, and interaction: examining the emergence of routines. Journal of Management Studies, 49, 1586-607.
13. Becker, M. C. (2004). 'Organizational routines: a review of the literature. Industrial and Corporate Change, 13, 643-77.
14. Becker, M. C. (2005). 'A framework for applying organizational routines in empirical research: linking antecedants, characteristics and performance outcomes of recurrent interaction patterns. Industrial and Corporate Change, 14, 817-46.
15. Becker, M. C., Lazaric, N., Nelson, R. R. and Winter, S. G. (2005). 'Applying organizational routines in understanding organizational change. Industrial and Corporate Change, 14, 775-91.
16. Betsch, T., Haberstroh, S., Molter, B. and Glockner, A. (2004). 'Oops, I did it again - relapse errors in routinized decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 93, 62-74.
17. Bigley, G. A. and Roberts, K. H. (2001). 'The incident command system: high-reliability organizing for complex and volatile task environments. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 1281-99.
18. Cacciatori, E. (2012). 'Resolving conflict in problem-solving: systems of artefacts in the development of new routines. Journal of Management Studies, 49, 1559-85.
19. Camerer, C. F. (2003). Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
20. Cohen, M. D. (2007). 'Reading Dewey: reflections on the study of routine. Organization Studies, 28, 773-86.
21. Cohen, M. D. and Bacdayan, P. (1994). 'Organizational routines are stored as procedural memory: evidence from a laboratory study. Organization Science, 5, 554-68.
22. Cohen, M. D., Burkhart, R., Dosi, G., Egidi, M., Marengo, L., Warglien, M. and Winter, S. (1996). 'Routines and other recurring action patterns of organizations: contemporary research issues. Industrial and Corporate Change, 5, 653-98.
23. Crawford, V. P. (1995). 'Adaptive dynamics in coordination games. Econometrica, 63, 103-44.
24. Crawford, V. P. and Haller, H. (1990). 'Learning how to cooperate: optimal play in repeated coordination games. Econometrica, 58, 571-95.
25. Cyert, R. M. and March, J. G. (1963). A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
26. Dosi, G. and Marengo, L. (2007). 'On the evolutionary and behavioral theories of organizations: a tentative roadmap. Organization Science, 18, 491-502.
27. Feldman, M. S. (2000). 'Organizational routines as a source of continuous change. Organization Science, 11, 611-29.
28. Feldman, M. S. (2003). 'A performative perspective on stability and change in organizational routines. Industrial and Corporate Change, 12, 727-52.
29. Feldman, M. S. and Pentland, B. T. (2003). 'Reconceptualizing organizational routines as a source of flexibility and change. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48, 94-118.
30. Feldman, M. S. and Pentland, B. T. (2008). 'Routine dynamics'. In Barry, D. and Hansen, H. (Eds), Sage Handbook of New Approaches in Management and Organization. London: Sage, 302-15.
31. Feldman, M. S. and Rafaeli, A. (2002). 'Organizational routines as sources of connections and understandings. Journal of Management Studies, 39, 309-31.
32. Felin, T. and Foss, N. (2005). 'Strategic organization: a field in search of micro-foundations. Strategic Organization, 3, 441-55.
33. Fiske, S. T. and Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social Cognition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
34. Foss, N. (2009). 'Alternative research strategies in the knowledge movement: from macro bias to micro-foundations and multi-level explanation. European Management Journal, 6, 16-28.
35. Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
36. Gilbert, C. (2005). 'Unbundling the structure of inertia: resource versus routine rigidity. Academy of Management Journal, 48, 741-63.
37. Hannan, M. T. and Freeman, J. (1989). Organizational Ecology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
38. Helfat, C. (1994). 'Firm-specificity in corporate applied R&D. Organization Science, 5, 173-84.
39. Helfat, C. (1997). 'Simple indicators of adaptation versus rigidity in history-dependent firm activities and decision rules. Industrial and Corporate Change, 7, 49-75.
40. Hodgson, G. M. (2003). 'The mystery of the routine: the Darwinian destiny of an evolutionary theory of economic change. Revue Economique, 54, 355-84.
41. Howard-Grenville, J. A. (2005). 'The persistence of flexible organizational routines: the role of agency and organizational context. Organization Science, 16, 618-36.
42. Knudsen, T. (2008). 'Organizational routines in evolutionary theory'. In Becker, M. C. (Ed.), Handbook of Organizational Routines. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 125-51.
43. Kruskal, J. B. (1983). 'An overview of sequence comparison'. In Sankoff, D. and Kruskal, J. B. (Eds), Time Warps, String Edits and Macromolecules. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1-44.
44. Leonardi, P. M. and Barley, S. R. (2010). 'What's under construction here? Social action, materiality, and power in constructivist studies of technology and organizing. Academy of Management Annals, 4, 1-51.
45. Levinthal, D. and Rerup, C. (2006). 'Crossing an apparent chasm: bridging mindful and less-mindful perspectives on organizational learning. Organization Science, 17, 502-13.
46. Maitlis, S. and Sonenshein, S. (2010). 'Sensemaking in crisis and change: inspiration and insights from Weick (1988). Journal of Management Studies, 47, 551-80.
47. March, J. G. (1991). 'Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning. Organization Science, 2, 78-87.
48. March, J. G. (1992). A Primer on Decision Making: How Decisions Happen. New York: Free Press.
49. March, J. G. and Simon, H. (1958). Organizations. New York: Wiley.
50. Miller, K. D., Pentland, B. T. and Choi, S. (2012). 'Dynamics of performing and remembering organizational routines. Journal of Management Studies, 49, 1536-58.
51. Narduzzo, A. and Warglien, M. (2008). 'Conducting experimental research on organizational routines'. In Becker, M. C. (Ed.), Handbook of Organizational Routines. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 301-24.
52. Narduzzo, A., Rocco, E. and Warglien, M. (2000). 'Talking about routines in the field: the emergence of organizational capabilities in a new cellular phone network company'. In Dosi, G., Nelson, R. R. and Winter, S. G. (Eds), The Nature and Dynamics of Organizational Capabilities. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 27-50.
53. Nelson, R. R. and Winter, S. G. (1982). An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
54. Newell, A. and Rosenbloom, P. S. (1981). 'Mechanisms of skill acquisition and the law of practice'. In Anderson, J. R. (Ed.), Cognitive Skills and Their Acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1-55.
55. Orlikowski, W. J. (2007). 'Sociomaterial practices: exploring technology at work. Organization Studies, 28, 1435-48.
56. Ouellette, J. A. and Wood, W. (1998). 'Habit and intention in everyday life: the multiple processes by which past behavior predicts future behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 54-74.
57. Paruchuri, S. and Eisenman, M. (2012). 'Microfoundations of firm R&D capabilities: a study of inventor networks in a merger. Journal of Management Studies, 49, 1509-35.
58. Pentland, B. T. (2003). 'Conceptualizing and measuring variety in the execution of organizational work processes. Management Science, 49, 857-70.
59. Pentland, B. T. and Feldman, M. S. (2005). 'Organizational routines as a unit of analysis. Industrial and Corporate Change, 14, 793-815.
60. Pentland, B. T. and Feldman, M. S. (2008). 'Designing routines: on the folly of designing artifacts, while hoping for patterns of action. Information and Organization, 18, 235-50.
61. Pentland, B. T. and Reuter, H. H. (1994). 'Organizational routines as grammars of action. Administrative Science Quarterly, 39, 484-510.
62. Pentland, B. T., Haerem, T. and Hillison, D. (2011). 'The (n)ever-changing world: stability and change in organizational routines. Organization Science, 22, 1369-83.
63. 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, 1484-508.
64. Perlow, L. A., Okhuysen, G. A. and Repenning, N. P. (2002). 'The speed trap: exploring the relationship between decision making and temporal context. Academy of Management Journal, 45, 931-55.
65. Poole, M. S. (2004). 'Central issues in the study of change and innovation'. In Poole, M. S. and Van de Ven, A. H. (Eds), Handbook of Organizational Change and Innovation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3-31.
66. Ranson, S., Hinings, B. and Greenwood, R. (1980). 'The structuring of organizational structures. Administrative Science Quarterly, 25, 1-17.
67. Reagans, R., Argote, L. and Brooks, D. (2005). 'Individual experience and experience working together: predicting learning rates from knowing who knows what and knowing how to work together. Management Science, 51, 869-81.
68. Rerup, C. and Feldman, M. S. (2011). 'Routines as a source of change in organizational schema: the role of trial-and-error learning. Academy of Management Journal, 54, 577-610.
69. Rudolph, J. W., Morrison, J. B. and Carroll, J. S. (2009). 'The dynamics of action-oriented problem-solving: linking interpretation and choice. Academy of Management Review, 34, 733-56.
70. Salvato, C. (2009). 'Capabilities unveiled: the role of ordinary activities in the evolution of product development processes. Organization Science, 20, 384-409.
71. Salvato, C. and Rerup, C. (2011). 'Beyond collective entities: multi-level research on organizational routines and capabilities. Journal of Management, 37, 468-90.
72. 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: Edward Elgar, 205-27.
73. Sewell, W. H. (1992). 'A theory of structure: duality, agency, and transformation. American Journal of Sociology, 98, 1-29.
74. Simonton, D. K. (2003). 'Scientific creativity as constrained stochastic behavior: the integration of product, person, and process perspectives. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 475-94.
75. Szulanski, G. (1996). 'Exploring internal stickiness: impediments to the transfer of best practice within the firm. Strategic Management Journal, 17, 27-43.
76. Szulanski, G. and Jensen, R. J. (2006). 'Presumptive adaptation and the effectiveness of knowledge transfer. Strategic Management Journal, 27, 937-57.
77. Thompson, J. D. (1967). Organizations in Action. New York: McGraw-Hill.
78. Turner, S. F. and Rindova, V. (2012). 'A balancing act: how organizations pursue consistency in routine functioning in the face of ongoing change. Organization Science, 23, 24-46.
79. Van Huyck, J. B., Battalio, R. C. and Beil, R. (1990). 'Tacit cooperation games, strategic uncertainty, and coordination failure. American Economic Review, 80, 234-48.
80. Weick, K. E. (1993). 'The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: the Mann Gulch disaster. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38, 628-52.
81. Weick, K. E. and Sutcliffe, K. M. (2007). Managing the Unexpected. San Francisco, CA: Wiley.
82. Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M. and Obstfeld, D. (1999). 'Organizing for high reliability: processes of collective mindfulness. Research in Organizational Behavior, 21, 81-123.
83. Winter, S. G. and Szulanski, G. (2001). 'Replication as strategy. Organization Science, 12, 730-43.
84. Wood, W. and Neal, D. T. (2007). 'A new look at habits and the habit-goal interface. Psychological Review, 114, 843-63.
85. Wood, W., Tam, L. and Witt, M. G. (2005). 'Changing circumstances, disrupting habits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 918-33.