Formation and Dynamics of Organizational Routines

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)."Routines are vital to how work gets done in organizations. Routines are repetitive, recognizable patterns of interdependent actions carried out by multiple actors. These patterns can be flexible or rigid; they can produce efficiency gains or persistent inefficiency. This project seeks to advance our understanding about when routines are advantageous or disdvantageous to organizational performance, including performance in terms of innovation, organizational change, and assimilation of new technology. The inquiry centers on how organizational routines form and change over time. The researchers address this question in three ways. First, they look into the formation of networks of individuals who engage in coordinated problem solving. The formation of networks for accomplishing routines is especially important because once a pattern of action starts, it tends to influence who gets involved and what tasks get done subsequently. Second, they examine the challenges of forming and adapting routines in complex and changing environments. This portion of the research considers the factors that affect how well organizations handle problems that change occasionally or persistently. Third, they identify the conditions under which routines display inertia or change, and the implications for organizational efficiency. This facet of the project examines how environmental instability and organizational characteristics explain instability and change in organizational routines.The project will involve an agent-based computer simulation model of routine formation and evolution, which will be used to run a series of experiments that illuminate the three central research issues. In parallel with the three simulation studies, the team will conduct field studies to help validate the simulation model and provide bounds on the parameter space. They will also create a stand-alone computer simulation program with a simple graphical user interface that can be used to teach the dynamics of routines.