Organizational Routines - A Review of The Literature - Becker

Industrial and Corporate Change, Volume 13, Number 4, pp.
643–677
doi:10.1093/icc/dth026
Organizational routines: a review of the

literature
Markus C. Becker
Over twenty years have passed since Nelson and Winter put the concept of routines
firmly at the center of the analysis of organizational and economic change. A
growing number of researchers have followed their example since. However,
researchers have not always had the same idea of what routines are and what
effect they have on organizations. Over time, this has left the literature on routines
riddled with ambiguities. For researchers who want to apply the concept of
routines in their research, it is not easy to get an overview of the current thinking
about routines and their effects. This article offers a systematic review of the
literature that has contributed to the theoretical development of the concept of
routines, and of the empirical literature that has applied the concept of routines.
1. Introduction
An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (Nelson and Winter, 1982) was a milestone
in the endeavor to develop an evolutionary perspective on the economy, capable
of explaining organizational and economic change. One of the many important
contributions made in the book was to put the concept of routines center-stage,
drawing attention both to the role of routines in the economy, and the role of the
concept of routines in theory. Taken as the central unit of analysis, routines would help
understand how firms and the economy work, and hold the key for understanding
organizational and economic change. While Nelson and Winter (1982) was not the first
work to mention routines, it provided an important impulse, drawing much attention
to the concept of routines and invigorating research on routines. More than twenty
years have passed since. Many researchers have heeded Nelson and Winter’s (1982) call
to put routines center-stage in their analysis. Despite (or because) its increasing
popularity, many ambiguities and inconsistencies in the literature dealing with routines
prevail still today (Cohen and Bacdayan, 1994; Avery, 1996; Cohen et al., 1996; Reynaud,
1998; Jones and Craven, 2001). That makes it difficult to get a good grasp of what
routines are, and what effect they have on organizations. It also diminishes the
explanatory power of the concept of routines, and has slowed down progress in
understanding how precisely the concept of routines fits into theories of organizational
and economic change.
In order to provide researchers with an overview of the current understanding of
Industrial and Corporate Change 13/4 © ICC Association 2004; all rights reserved.
644 M. C. Becker
routines, the present paper addresses two questions: what routines are, and what effect
they have on organizations. It offers a systematic review of the literature that has
contributed to the theoretical development of the concept of routines, and of the
empirical literature that has applied the concept of routines.1
The paper is structured in categories generated from the literature review. I first
present characteristics of routines, then give an overview of the effects routines have on
organizations. In each category, I first present a summary of the conceptual and then of
the empirical research.2 The concluding section draws implications for our under-
standing of routines and for further research.
2. The characteristics of routines
2.1 Patterns
As the history of the concept of routines reveals, the notion of ‘patterns’ has been
central to the concept from early on (Becker, 2001), grasping the regularity that the
concept of routines stands for. In 1964, Sidney Winter (1964: 263) defined a routine as
‘pattern of behavior that is followed repeatedly, but is subject to change if conditions
change’. At about the same time, philosopher Arthur Koestler defined routines as
‘flexible patterns offering a variety of alternative choices’ (Koestler, 1967: 44).3 The
notion of routines as patterns also appears in Nelson and Winter (1982: 14, 15 and 113),
Heiner (1983: 334), Teece and Pisano (1994: 541 and 545), Cohen et al. (1996), Grant
(1996: 115), Sanchez et al. (1996: 7), Teece et al. (1997: 518) and Dyer and Singh (1998:
665).
If routines are patterns, then what do these patterns consist of? In the literature, four
different terms are used for denoting the ‘content’ of the patterns: action, activity,
behavior and interaction.4 If there are differences between these four terms in the
1
The literature review does not cover the many studies that mention routines in passing. A huge
number of such studies exist which allude to routines but do not contribute to the understanding of the
concept of routines. The literature included here is—to the best of the author’s knowledge—reasonably
comprehensive with regard to studies that are either concerned with making a contribution to
understanding the concept of routines or with applying it. Exceptions most certainly exist. I do not
believe, though, that they will alter the picture drawn here substantially.
2
In referencing empirical studies, in many cases I will restrict myself to simply point to studies that
pursue the respective issue. Due to space considerations, I will present only those studies in some detail,
which are most important in establishing support for the point made in the text.
3
Note the emphasis on variation in these two early definitions of routines. This aspect subsequently
disappeared when attention focused on the inertia of routines. As Costello (2000: 14) writes: today ‘the
variation and openness of routines are often missed’. Only recently has this aspect been rehabilitated
(Feldman, 2000, 2003; Feldman and Rafaeli, 2002; Feldman and Pentland, 2003).
4
Action (Cohen et al., 1996; Egidi, 1996; Jarzabkowski and Wilson, 2002), activity (Winter, 1990:
275–276; Dosi et al., 2000: 4; Jones and Craven, 2000; Karim and Mitchell, 2000), behaviour (Nelson
and Winter, 1982: 14; Winter, 1986; Langlois and Everett, 1994; Langlois and Robertson, 1995;
Organizational routines: a review of the literature 645
economics and business literature, we have met the first source of conceptual
ambiguities. And differences there are indeed. In the economics and business literature,
the terms ‘action’ and ‘activity’ provide the least problem: they are usually used as
synonyms. A difference between the terms ‘action’ and ‘behavior’ is, however,
commonly made in the economics and business literature. As both general dictionaries
(American Heritage Dictionary) and management dictionaries (Cleveland, 1998)
indicate, ‘behavior’ is a subset of action. ‘Behavior’ is distinguished from ‘action’ by the
fact that it is observable,5 and that it is understood as a response to a stimulus.
‘Interaction’ is a subset of ‘action’, referring to such action that involves multiple actors.
The term ‘interaction’ therefore clearly establishes a distinction between the individual
and the collective level. As I describe in Section 2.3, sliding between these two levels in
the discussion has haunted the literature on routines for many years. For reducing the
ambiguity surrounding the concept, and for improving our understanding of routines,
clearly distinguishing these dimensions is an important step. Referring back to the
history of the concept of routines can also reduce conceptual ambiguity. Historically,
the term ‘routines’ clearly referred to recurrent interaction patterns, that is, collective
recurrent activity patterns.6 As opposed to that, recurrent activity patterns on the
individual level have been associated with the term ‘habits’ (Hodgson, 1993b). Also,
many empirical studies document routines as patterns of interaction (e.g. Cohen and
Bacdayan, 1994; Pentland and Rueter, 1994; Zellmer-Bruhn, 1999, 2003; Burns, 2000;
Costello, 2000).
There is, however, an altogether different possibility to answer the question what the
pattern (regularity) consists of. All four alternatives described above are instances of
activity, i.e. routines are understood as activity patterns. As opposed to that, routines
can also be understood as cognitive regularities or cognitive patterns (Simon, 1947;
March and Simon, 1958; Cyert and March, 1963; Cohen, 1991; Egidi, 1992; Delmestri,
1998). Routines would then be understood as rules: for instance, ‘If {condition A}, then
{do B}’. In the business world, there are many kinds of such ‘if–then’ rules, for instance,
heuristics and rules of thumb (Hall and Hitch, 1939; Katona, 1946), industry recipes
(Spender, 1989), standard operating procedures (Cyert and March, 1963) and programs
(Simon, 1965, 1967, 1977).
Behavioral patterns and cognitive regularities are clearly different. They are
regularities on two different levels, cognition and activity. It is therefore important to
Montgomery, 1995; Coombs and Metcalfe, 1998; Bessant et al., 2001; Jones and Craven, 2000;
Edmondson et al., 2001; Emery, 2002; Lillrank, 2003; Salvato, 2003) and interaction (Dosi et al., 1992:
191–192; Teece and Pisano, 1994; Tranfield and Smith, 1998; Gittell, 2002; Zollo et al., 2002).
5
Some of the ambiguity introduced at this point therefore refers to the question whether all routines
have to be observable or not.
6
Having clarified the differences between the terms ‘action’, ‘activity’, ‘behaviour’ and ‘interaction’, I will
use either the precise term recurrent interaction patterns or—for flow of language—the term
‘behaviour pattern’. Where I use the latter, the reader is asked to keep in mind that in the case of
routines, the precise definition of such a pattern is ‘recurrent interaction pattern’.
646 M. C. Becker
distinguish these two different meanings, both associated with the term ‘routines’
(Cohen et al., 1996; Becker, 2004). The fact that authors sometimes refer to cognitive
regularities, and sometimes to activity regularities when they use the term ‘routines’ is a
major source of confusion. In the present paper, I do not enter the discussion of what
level the term should be applied to, in order to keep focus (the interested reader is
referred to Knudsen, 2002a, 2004; Hodgson, 2003). We will, however, come back to this
problem in the concluding section.
2.2 Recurrence
Recurrence is a key characteristic of routines (Winter, 1990; Cohen et al., 1996; for
empirical studies, see Pentland, 1992; Cohen and Bacdayan, 1994; Pentland and Rueter,
1994; Egidi and Narduzzo, 1997; Knott and McKelvey, 1999; Costello, 2000; Karim and
Mitchell, 2000; Betsch et al., 2001). In fact, one would be hard pressed to call something
happening only once a routine.7
2.3 The collective nature of routines

Routines are collective phenomena (Nelson and Winter, 1982: 73; Grant, 1991;
Hodgson, 1993b; Murphy, 1994; Lazaric, 2000; Cohendet and Llerena, 2003; Hodgson
and Knudsen, 2003a; cf. Stene, 1940; Simon, 1947). They involve multiple actors
(Feldman and Pentland, 2003). Nelson and Winter have recently revisited the issue: ‘In
our view, clarity would be served by reserving the term “skills” to the individual level
and ‘routines’ to the organizational level’ (Dosi et al., 2000: 5). Historically, a sometimes
ambiguous presentation of the issue in crucial passages of important works (Simon,
1947; Nelson and Winter, 1982) appears to have given rise to different interpretations
(see Becker, 2001).
Recognizing the collective nature of routines immediately improves our
understanding of the concept of routines. To involve multiple actors means that
carrying out one routine might involve actors in different locations. Organizational
routines can therefore be distributed8 (Simon, 1992; Winter, 1994; Scapens, 1994;
7
Note that even routines put into practice very few times, such as the evacuation of a building, are in
fact practised. The routine is recurrent even if only practised in a dry run, i.e. without a fire.
8
A note on the terms ‘distributed’ and ‘dispersed’, two terms that have a very similar meaning according
to the dictionary. In the context of discussions of knowledge, routines, and cognition, both terms have
been used, sometimes in exchangeable meanings, sometimes with different meanings. ‘Distributed’ has
often been used as attribute to cognition and routines, while as an attribute to knowledge, both
‘dispersed’ and ‘distributed’ have been used. A possible reason is that in his seminal contribution,
Hayek (1945) used the term ‘dispersed knowledge’. In order to avoid confusion, I define the two terms
as follows. Dispersed knowledge connotes a situation where the knowledge held by different people is
not identical (overlaps are small). Distributed knowledge connotes a situation where the different
people hold overlapping, identical knowledge. From a population perspective, we could say that the
population holds identical copies of the knowledge in question. Distributed knowledge therefore refers
to common knowledge and redundancy—the others know what you know. Dispersed knowledge refers
to specialization and complementarity—the others are specialists in some other area and do not know
Cohen et al., 1996; Coriat and Dosi, 1998; Lazaric and Mangolte, 1998; Zollo and
Winter, 2002). Routines can be distributed across space, or across the organization—the
multiple actors carrying out the routines belong to different organizational units, and
are located in different places. They are, however, linked by the interaction. It is
important to consider also the knowledge held by the actors involved in carrying out
the routine. To the extent that they are specialists, they will hold knowledge that is so
specialized that the overlap with the knowledge of the other actors will be small. In the
extreme, there will be no overlap. To the degree that this is the case, the knowledge held
by the different actors is said to the dispersed. It does not completely overlap (Hayek,
1945; Minkler, 1993). In consequence, it is difficult, if not impossible, to get an overview
of the ‘whole’ knowledge held in the organization (cf. Winter, 1994; Cohen et al., 1996;
Zollo and Winter, 2002). Where that is the case, the dispersedness of knowledge is a
driver of uncertainty: actors do not have the overview of all possible alternatives, and of
the factors that influence the probabilities with which these alternatives lead to certain
outcomes. Cohendet and Llerena (2003) have recently developed a second aspect of the
collective nature of routines in more depth. The multiple actors that are involved in the
routine can make up different kinds of communities. On the one hand, there are
hierarchical communities such as functional communities. These are organized
hierarchically, are homogeneous and share a disciplinary specialization. On the other
hand, there are epistemic communities and communities of practice, which are
horizontally defined either by the production of new knowledge or by a common
interest in a given practice. Importantly, all three kinds of communities provide a
different local context in which routines emerge and learning takes place, leading to
routines that strongly differ in terms of power of replication, of degree of inertia and of
search potential (Cohendet and Llerena, 2003).
Many empirical studies describe routines as collective phenomena (Weick, 1990,
1993; Cohen and Bacdayan, 1994; Pentland and Rueter, 1994; Jones and Craven, 2001;
Edmondson et al., 2001). Empirical studies add considerable detail to our under-
standing of the collective nature of routines. In his analysis of the documentation of a
historical airplane disaster, Weick arrives at the conclusion that routines can be
disrupted when participants in a routine start ‘acting in a manner that is more
individual than collective’ (Weick, 1990: 579). This finding has profound implications
for understanding the relationship between individual actors and the collective routines
they participate in: in order for organizational coordination not to break down, a fine
balance between individual habits and organizational routines needs to be kept.
Empirical research also describes instances in which routines are dispersed. In
experiments in which participants needed to cooperate in order to win a card game,
Egidi found that ‘organizational procedures (routines) . . . emerge as the outcome of a
distributed process generated by “personal” production rules’ (Egidi, 1996: 303). This
(to the same extent) what you know. Such a definition links to Hayek’s use of the term and is consistent
with the problem he describes (see also Minkler, 1993).
648 M. C. Becker
finding hints at emergence as a mechanism by which collective routines arise from the
interplay of individual rules, interests and activities.
2.4 Mindlessness vs. effortful accomplishment

Another issue on which opinions differ widely is the question whether routines are
characterized by ‘mindlessness’ (Ashforth and Fried, 1988) or—to the contrary—are
‘effortful accomplishments’ (Pentland and Rueter, 1994: 488).
Proponents of the first position maintain that individuals often follow routines
without devoting attention to them. They do not draw on substantial cognitive
resources from the realm of consciousness (Weiss and Ilgen, 1985; Gersick and
Hackman, 1990; Cohen, 1991; Louis and Sutton, 1991; Kilduff, 1992; Postrel and
Rumelt, 1992; Nelson, 1995; Dosi et al., 2000; Lazaric, 2000; cf. Stene, 1940; Simon,
1947). Rather, to a large extent, routines are executed in the realm of the subconscious
(see Section 3.3 on ‘economizing cognitive resources’).
Proponents of the second position, on the other hand, argue that organizational
routines are not mindless but ‘effortful accomplishments’ (Pentland and Rueter, 1994:
488; Pentland, 1995; Costello, 2000; Feldman, 2000, 2003; Perren and Grant, 2000;
Feldman and Pentland, 2003; cf. Orlikowski, 2002). Serious disagreement therefore
divides the literature. What is notable about this divide is that it largely runs along the
line of conceptual vs. empirical work. All the references cited above for the first camp
are to conceptual papers, while the references cited for the second camp are empirical
papers.9 These latter articles arrive at the conclusion that organizational routines are
effortful accomplishments by noting how, in a variety of organizations, such as call
centers, information technology firms, small firms and housing organizations, routines
are characterized by being changeable and open to variation. Deriving from a
longitudinal and in-depth case study of a housing organization, a possible resolution of
the apparent contradiction between routines mindless or effortful has recently been
offered (Feldman, 2000, 2003; Feldmann and Pentland, 2003). Taking account of two
aspects of routines holds the key to resolving the contradiction. On the one hand, there
is what Feldman and Pentland (2003) call the ostensive aspect: our representation of a
routine, such as ‘hiring routine’ or ‘inventory control’. We use these labels to refer to the
ways in which such tasks are accomplished. On the other hand, however, there is the
concrete carrying out of a particular hiring routine in organization X at point of time Y,
by actors A and B (the performative aspect). These two aspects are different. The
ostensive aspect cannot encompass specific performances, because there are always
contextual details that remain open—and must remain open—for the routine to be
carried out (Feldman and Pentland, 2003: 101). So far, the performative aspect has often
been overlooked, leading to a neglect of the crucial role of the actor (Feldman, 2000).
Organizational routines are not simply followed or reproduced—rather, people have a
choice between whether to do so, or whether to amend the routine (Feldman, 2000,
9
The only exception being Feldman and Pentland (2003).
Feldman and Pentland, 2003). As Winter (1985: 109) put it: ‘Mechanistic decision
making does not necessarily diminish the opportunities for genuine, deliberate choice.’
From such a point of view, one can then fruitfully ask why people do or do not change
routines. At the same time, the proposed vantage point also provides an endogenous
explanation for the how routines change, for the role of agency in performing routines,
and for the fact that routines can be simple rule-following behavior at one point of time,
but involve adaptive and creative behavior at another point of time.
2.5 The processual nature of routines

The concept of routines holds the promise to contribute to explaining organizational
and economic change. Change, needless to emphasize, is a process. The potential of the
concept of routines to contribute to explaining change is based on the fact that routines
are a unit of analysis that is processual in nature. Routines occupy ‘the crucial nexus
between structure and action, between the organization as an object and organizing as a
process’ (Pentland and Rueter, 1994: 484). This is why they provide a ‘window’ to the
drivers underlying change, enabling us to observe change in more detail. Because
routines provide some degree of stability (see Section 3.5), they provide a contrast
required to detect novelty. It is in this way that routines enable researchers to map
organizational change—as incremental change of the routines themselves. Therein lies
a great potential of the concept of routines for empirical work (for examples of
applying routines in the analysis of organizational change, see Miner, 1991; Adler et al.,
1999; Feldman, 2000, 2003; for questions of method, see Pentland, 2003a,b).
For realizing the potential contribution of the concept of routines in explaining
organizational and economic change, it is therefore of crucial importance to bear the
processual nature of routines in mind. The implications are twofold. First, while
talking about ‘the routine’ is convenient from a linguistic point of view, we should at all
cost avoid any kind of reification. A routine is a process, even despite the conceptual
complication that a recurrent pattern of interaction is a somewhat stable sequence of
interactions. Secondly, it is clearly important to use a rich vocabulary for describing the
processual nature of routines. The most important part of that vocabulary is the
dimensions describing the processual characteristics of routines. The following
dimensions can be found in the literature: the speed of decay of routines (linked to the
need to maintain routines) (Cohen, 1991: 139; Grant, 1991: 123; Hannan and Freeman,
1989: 76; cf. Giddens, 1984: 86); the speed of executing routines, of changing their
contents, and of switching between them (Cohen, 1991: 136); reaction speed (Cohen
and Bacdayan, 1994: 558; March, 1994a: 42), time lags and delays (March, 1994a: 42);
frequency of repetition and point of time of impact (Ginsberg and Baum, 1994: 130);
frequency and fashion of shifting from one routine or set of routines (Hannan and
Freeman, 1989: 76); age (duration) of an activity, speed of environmental change,
quality of information with regard to the activity, amount of managerial and employee
turnover, and volatility of the decision environment which all can act to intensify or
dispel the influence of routines (Hirshleifer and Welch, 1998); and tensions arising
650 M. C. Becker
from different speeds of different, but interacting routines (Winter, 1975: 109). The last
point is a good illustration how a rich description of the processual dimensions of
routines would allow us to get a better understanding of the development, stability, and
change of routines, and thereby of organizational and economic change.
The processual nature of routines is the area where empirical research has made its
maybe richest contributions. The following processual characteristics of routines have
been identified in empirical research, in case studies as well as in experimental research
and in simulations:10 time of impact (cf. Narduzzo et al., 2000), decay (Weick, 1990;
Cohen and Bacdayan, 1994), reaction time (Narduzzo et al., 2000), delays (Narduzzo et
al., 2000), time needed for acquisition (Weick, 1990), whether change takes place in
leaps or incrementally (Weick, 1990), frequency of repetitions (Weick, 1990; Narduzzo
et al., 2000; cf. Betsch et al., 1998), age dependence (Warglien, 1995) and necessary
maintenance in order for routines not to decay (Sherer et al., 1998). Amongst the
dimensions identified in the literature, the frequency of repetition seems to be a
particularly important one. It is, after all, a necessary condition for regularity to occur.
Another dimension that warrants attention appears to be the regularity of the
frequency (regularity of the rhythm of recurrence), or in other words, of interruptions
of the routine. Based on a survey (preceded by a large number of interviews) carried out
in three firms in the US pharmaceutical and medial products industry, Zellmer-Bruhn
(1999, 2003) confirmed the hypothesis that teams experiencing more interruptions will
be more likely to either search for or adopt new routines from external, rather than
internal, sources (Zellmer-Bruhn, 1999, 2003). Time pressure is a third processual
dimension I want to highlight here. Experimental research in psychology clearly
supports the impact of time pressure on the maintenance of routines. A replication and
extension of the original experiments of Cohen and Bacdayan (1994) found that time
pressure increases the likelihood of routine choices (as opposed to non-routine
choices), even when the inadequacy of the routine was indicated before the choice
(Garapin and Hollard, 1999). This experiment consisted in a computerized card game
in which the players had to learn to coordinate their actions to achieve a common goal,
without being allowed to use verbal communication. Similarly, an experimental study
in which participants had to make a series of choices among different fertilizers, whose
attributes were revealed only gradually over a number of trials, found that prior
knowledge gained a stronger impact on choices if time pressure increased, and could
even overrule new evidence (Betsch et al., 1999). These findings indicate that increased
time pressure (and other increased constraints such as stress) will not only induce
falling back on routine responses, but will also lead to a preference of those routine
responses which are rehearsed most often.11 Time pressure also influences where actors
10
Cohen and Bacdayan (1994) and Betsch et al. (1998) are experimental studies, Warglien (1995) is a
simulation study. Narduzzo et al. (2000), Weick (1990) and Sherer et al. (1998) are case studies of the
mobile phone, airline and taxicab industry, respectively.
11
Note, however, that in order for the adopted routine to work smoothly, a number of requirements
must be fulfilled. As Weick (1993) points out, routines can fall apart if there is a lacking sense of
search for new routines (externally or from within the group involved in the routine).
Zellmer-Bruhn’s (1999) study did not support the hypothesis that time pressure is
negatively related to the adoption of routines from external sources, and concluded that
the effect of time pressure in external search for new routines (as opposed to developing
new routines internally) is unclear. A possible explanation is that ‘when time is scarce,
teams will not devote scarce temporal resources to internal development of new work
routines’, but rather adopt some readily available routine (Zellmer-Bruhn, 1999:
88–89).
2.6 Context-dependence, embeddedness and specificity

Routines are embedded in an organization and its structures, and are specific to the
context (Teece and Pisano, 1994; Inkpen and Crossan, 1995; Cohen et al., 1996;
Madhok, 1997; Teece et al., 1997; Morosini et al., 1998; Tranfield and Smith, 1998;
Cohendet and Llerena, 2003). Context matters because of complementarities between
routines and their context. The notions of ‘scaffolded action’ (Clark, 1997) and ‘situated
action’ (Suchman, 1987) illustrate how action relies on external support. External
structures (e.g. artifacts) help to control, prompt and coordinate individual actions.
Such an idea is consistent with the notion that general rules and procedures have to be
incompletely specified when transferred across contexts, precisely because contexts are
different. As a consequence, the application of general rules to specific contexts always
involves incomplete specification and missing components (Reynaud, 1998).
Interpretation and judgement skills are required for completing general rules, such as,
for example, to know what routines to perform when (Nelson and Winter, 1982; Hill et
al., 1990). Furthermore, context matters because it leads to routines that strongly differ
in terms of power of replication, degree of inertia and search potential (Cohendet and
Llerena, 2003).
Several kinds of specificity have been identified in the literature: historical specificity
(Barney, 1991; Reynaud, 1996; Hodgson, 2001), local specificity (Simon, 1976) and
relation specificity (Dyer and Singh, 1998). Historical specificity derives from the fact
that whatever happens does so at a certain point of time, which is characterized by a
certain constellation of environmental factors and interpretative mindsets (Reynaud,
1996). Because such constellations will be complex, the probability that routines can be
replicated exactly is low (cf. Rivkin, 2001). Local specificities also arise because routines
are outcomes local learning processes (Egidi, 1992; Malerba and Orsenigo, 1996; cf.
Foster, 1981), and because of cultural differences and limits to generalization arising
from those (cf. Simon, 1976).
collectivity, for instance because the collective sense-making process is disturbed. Conditions of
(extreme) time pressure and other constraints obstruct collective sense-making (for instance because
there is less time, and less occasion, to communicate), thus making it more likely that routines, once
adopted, fall apart. Routines that have been acquired more recently and practised less often are even
more vulnerable and can be expected to unravel sooner than those acquired earlier under time pressure
(Weick, 1990).
652 M. C. Becker
Limits to the transfer of routines to other contexts are the most important
implication of specificity. When removed from their original context, routines may
be largely meaningless (Elam, 1993), and their productivity may decline (Grant,
1991). Problems with transferability arise because it may not be clear what is essential
about the routines and what is peripheral (Lippman and Rumelt, 1982; Nelson,
1994; Winter and Szulanski, 2001a,b; Szulanski and Winter, 2002); because the
routine might be incompatible with the new context (Madhok, 1997); or because it
might prove impossible to copy some elements of the routine due to problems in
transferring tacit knowledge (Hill et al., 1990; Grant, 1991; Langlois and Robertson,
1995; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). An important consequence of limits to the
transferability of routines across different contexts is that no such thing as a universal
best practice can possibly exist (Amit and Belcourt, 1999). There can only be local
‘best’ solutions. An implication of this argument is that the possibility of replicating
routines inside the firm is improved, at least to the extent that firms provide
somewhat homogenous environments (cf. Hodgson, 1988; Hill et al., 1990; Kogut and
Zander, 1992, 1993).
Empirical research adds detail to the understanding of routines as context-
dependent, embedded and specific. Case studies of the UK National Health System
(NHS) and a chemical manufacturer highlighted the importance of recognizing the
links between routines and ‘higher-order’ assumptions and values on the one hand, and
between cognitive aspects of organization, and organizational structures and processes
on the other (Johnson, 2000). One of the insights gained in a case study of the
establishment of a mobile phone network was that the nature of the linkages between
the cognitive and behavioral levels is still unclear (Narduzzo et al., 2000), even though
individual case studies exist that document how routines present the structural context
for processes such as the development of corporate strategy (Menuhin and McGee,
2001). A series of papers that analyze BankOne’s operations in taking over banks
illuminates the process of the replication of routines, and also supports the idea of
limits to the transferability of routines to different contexts (Winter and Szulanski,
2001a,b; Szulanski and Winter, 2002), amongst other reasons because the knowledge
bound by routines is procedural knowledge. The term ‘procedural knowledge’
characterizes knowledge of how things are done, which is relatively inarticulate and
encompasses both cognitive and motor activities (Cohen and Bacdayan, 1994: 554).
Finally, empirical studies have supported the notion of the historical specificity of
routines. As explained above, because general rules and routines always have to be
incompletely specified, they always require interpretation due to which local and
historical specificities can develop, leading to heterogeneity of practices across time and
space (Narduzzo et al., 2000).
2.7 Path dependence

It is well recognized in the literature that routines change in a path-dependent manner
(David, 1997) and are shaped by history (Nelson and Winter, 1982; Levitt and March,
1988; North, 1990; Barney, 1991; Dosi and Metcalfe, 1991; Bourdieu, 1992; Dosi et al.,
1992; March, 1994a; Nelson, 1994; Malerba and Orsenigo, 1996; Foss, 1997; Madhok,
1997; Oliver, 1997; Teece et al., 1997; Coriat and Dosi, 1998; Amit and Belcourt, 1999).
Routines build on the past. How they will develop is a function of where they have
started out from (Dosi et al., 1992). Routines may adapt to experience incrementally in
response to feedback about outcomes, but they do so based on their previous state
(Levitt and March, 1988; Cohen et al., 1996).
Recognizing that routines change in a path-dependent manner highlights the
importance of feedback effects. Maybe the most well-known example of positive
feedback effects are competency traps: ‘favorable performance with an inferior
procedure leads an organization to accumulate more experience with it, thus keeping
experience with a superior procedure inadequate to make it rewarding to use’ (Levitt
and March, 1988: 322). Path dependent development of routines means that because
one can get stuck on a path, along which the routine develops over time, the starting
point matters. An additional difficulty in re-tracing the origin of the routine and
‘re-setting’ the routine to its state at an earlier point of time is that ‘the experiential
lessons of history are captured by routines in a way that makes the lessons, but not the
history, accessible to organizations and organizational members who have not
themselves experienced the history’ (Levitt and March, 1988: 320). Without knowledge
of the reasons, for which a certain path was taken in the past, it is impossible to
reconstruct the path and the problems to which the routine originally was the solution.
Empirical studies add to our understanding of the path dependent development of
routines. For instance, experiments involving repeated decision making with increasing
availability of information show that path dependence manifests itself because actors
take prior experience into account when making decisions (Betsch et al., 2001). From
their case study of the establishment of a mobile phone network, Narduzzo et al. (2000)
point to one implication of path dependent development: once local heterogeneity of
routines has been established, homogeneity of practices is very difficult to bring about.
Finally, Feldman’s (2000, 2003) studies of routines at a university housing organization
illuminate that change is part of the very nature of routines. It is endogenous to
routines, because whenever routines are repeated, actors have some influence to
perform aspects of the routine in a different way. Importantly, such change has shown
to often be incremental in the sense that one or a few ‘components’ of routines are
changed at a time (such as the rhythm of recurrence, the participants, etc.). This
explains why routines develop in a path dependent manner over time.
2.8 Triggers
Routines are triggered (Nelson and Winter, 1973; Weiss and Ilgen, 1985; Winter, 1986;
March and Olsen, 1989; Gersick and Hackman, 1990; Cohen, 1991; McKern, 1993;
Nelson and Nelson, 2002). Two kinds of triggers can be distinguished: actor-related
triggers and external cues. One form of external cues are links between routines. For
instance, at the end of the budgeting routine in the marketing department, a routine
654 M. C. Becker
for requesting the approval of the budget for a marketing campaign is triggered at
the finance department. Aspiration levels are a powerful form of actor-related trigger
of routines (Cyert and March, 1963; Levinthal and March, 1981; March, 1994b).
Aspiration levels establish a limit, for instance for a particular performance the actor
perceives as adequate and hopes to achieve. Where the performance is above that limit,
actors follow satisficing rather than optimizing behavior. They are content with their
performance and typically will not engage in endeavors to optimize their performance
(Cyert and March, 1963; Levinthal and March, 1981; March, 1994b). Where
performance is below the limit, some remedial action is triggered. Note that many of the
remedies will, in turn, have the form of routines (think for instance of the remedies
available for increasing sales).12
Empirical studies have identified a number of factors that have an impact on
triggering. An experimental study identified prior activation, the simultaneous
activation of other factors, the strength of association between a situation and an option
(the frequency), and the intensity of reinforcement as triggers of routines (Betsch et al.,
1998). Weick’s (1990) historical study of an airplane crash concluded that the intensity
of stress (associated with the triggering) is positively correlated with the regression to
first learned responses. To the extent that such responses are routinized, we would
expect the intensity of stress at the point of time of triggering to be correlated with the
age of the routine being triggered. Furthermore, empirical research has added detail on
the type of feedback that acts as a trigger of routines. Experimental results indicate that
negative feedback acts as a more powerful trigger of routines than positive feedback
(Schneier, 1995; Avery, 1996).
3. The effects of routines on organizations
3.1 Coordination and control

Routines coordinate (Stene, 1940; Nelson and Winter, 1982; March and Olsen, 1989;
Gersick and Hackman, 1990; Coriat, 1995; Dosi et al., 2000). Very early on, Stene (1940:
1129) proposed that the ‘coördination of activities within an organization tends to vary
directly with the degree to which essential and recurring functions have become part of
the organization routine’. The coordinative power of routines derives from several
sources: from their capacity to support a high level of simultaneity (Grant, 1996); from
giving regularity, unity and systematicity to practices of a group (Bourdieu, 1992); from
making many simultaneous activities mutually consistent (March and Olsen, 1989);
from providing each of the actors with knowledge of the behavior of the others on
which to base her own decisions (Simon, 1947; cf. Stene, 1940); from providing
instructions in the form of programs; and from establishing a truce (see Section 3.2)
12
Note the relevance of the discussion of mindlessness vs. effortful accomplishment in Section 2.4 for
the issue of triggers.
(Nelson and Winter, 1982). It has been claimed that as coordinating devices, routines
can be more efficient than contracts, so that they could even substitute for contracts and
make them increasingly unnecessary as relationships mature (Langlois and Robertson,
1995).
Empirical research has started to shed some light on the effect of routines on
coordination. A study of the investment manuals of a sample of major Swedish firms
noted that standards (and standardized routines) are especially influential for exerting
control (Segelod, 1997), one way to bring about coordination. A possible reason is that
routine behavior is easier to monitor and measure than non-routine behavior (cf.
Langlois, 1992). The more standardized, the easier to compare. The easier to compare,
the easier to control. Knott and McKelvey (1999) conducted an empirical test that
compares the relative value of residual claims and routines in generating firm efficiency,
using a large sample of firms from the US quick printing industry. The study concludes
that routines can be more efficient for coordination and control than residual claims,
contrary to principal-agent theory that has propagated residual claims as the most
efficient solution to the monitoring problem. Focusing on the question ‘What is the
best way for organizations to achieve coordination?’ Gittell (2002) analyzes the
performance effects of routines (and other coordination mechanisms such as boundary
spanners and team meetings). The study analyzes questionnaire data on care provider
groups in acute-care hospitals. It finds that the performance effects of routines were
mediated by relational coordination: routines work by enhancing interactions among
participants, which was found to have positive performance effects.
3.2 Truce
According to Nelson and Winter (1982: 107), organizational performances have two
different aspects: cognitive and governance13 aspects (cf. also Coriat and Dosi, 1998).
Emphasizing the second aspect, Nelson and Winter (1982: 108) and Coriat and Dosi
(1998) highlight the fact that members are rarely surprised by each other’s behavior.
What are the mechanisms underlying this capacity? One possibility is that there are no
divergent interests that could give rise to intraorganizational conflicts, another that
there is tight control of the behavior of the members of the organization. Nelson and
Winter do not argue for the first option (1982: 108), nor do they think control alone
can explain the smooth functioning of organizations. Although rule-enforcement
mechanisms play a crucial role in making routine operation possible (Nelson and
Winter, 1982: 109), their role is limited. Because it is always possible to either
circumvent rules to some extent, or to follow written rules by the letter and thereby
decrease performance, control systems leave a zone of discretion. Discretion awards
some bargaining power to those who execute orders. Usually, bargaining is not,
however, employed for each and every order that is to be executed. That smoothly
13
The two ways of governance mentioned in the literature on routines are governance through control
mechanisms and through motivation.
656 M. C. Becker
running routines can be observed is due to an (implicit) truce established between

those giving and those executing the orders. Barnard (1938) has described this well with
his notion of ‘zone of indifference’. Within this zone, orders are acceptable without
conscious questioning of the authority of those who give the orders. For instance, there
is some agreement that ‘the usual amount of work gets done, reprimands and
compliments are delivered with the usual frequency, and no demands are presented for
major modifications in the terms of the relationship’ (Nelson and Winter, 1982: 110).
That situation applies not only to the relations between workers and managers, but also
to relations among workers, among managers, or between managers and shareholders
(cf. Nelson and Winter, 2002).
The two dimensions of routines—cognitive and governance—are inseparable.
Importantly, both have their own logic and their own evolutionary path (Coriat and
Dosi, 1998; Mangolte, 1997a,b, 2000). The notion of ‘truce’ not only serves to make the
account of organizational change more realistic. It also fulfils a very important—and
largely overlooked—theoretical task. Without the notion of ‘truce’, one would have to
explain how the different social relationships that permit the activation of the routine
are themselves established in each period, and maintained over longer periods of time.
If they transform themselves, one would have to explain how they lead to the formation
and stabilization of a particular body of cognitive knowledge (Mangolte, 1997b). In a
conceptual paper, Lazaric and Mangolte (1998) argue that understanding a routine as
comprising a ‘truce’ helps recognize and appreciate the governance, in particular the
motivational, arrangements underlying the stability of recurrent activity. This does not,
however, mean motivation or control would be the only explanations of the persistence
of routines. In particular such routines that lie within the zone of indifference (Barnard,
1938) can also be persistent because they are taken for given.
Empirical studies have analyzed disruptions of established ‘truce’ situations. Lazaric
and Denis (2001), for instance, describe how the act of codifying knowledge can lead to
conflicts in social relations and thereby can have an impact on the cognitive and the
governance level. Their case study in the French food industry analyzes how codifying
the knowledge base underlying a particular task changes the way in which the task is
carried out. At the same time, codification also changes the motivations of the
participants in the routine. Lazaric et al. (2003) report similar findings from a case
study in the French steel industry and Burns (2000) from a case study of accounting
rules at a small English chemicals manufacturer’s. Such a description helps to
understand the forces underlying the stability, as well as the change, of routines.
3.3 Economizing on cognitive resources

Cognitive resources are limited (Simon, 1947, 1955; March and Olsen, 1976, 1989). The
implication is that neither all alternatives, nor all consequences of any one alternative
can be known (March and Simon, 1958). Nor can organizations attend to all of their
goals simultaneously. Attention has to be allocated selectively (Cyert and March, 1963;
March, 1988). Routines economize on the limited information processing and
decision-making capacity of agents (Simon, 1947, 1977; Winter, 1985; Gersick and
Hackman, 1990; Louis and Sutton, 1991; Langlois and Everett, 1994; Egidi and Ricottili,
1997; Fransmann, 1998; cf. also Hayek, 1952; Penrose, 1959; Hodgson, 1997, 1999a). By
preserving limited information-processing and decision-making capacity, they increase
the potential for focused attention (Simon, 1947; Postrel and Rumelt, 1992; March and
Shapira, 1987). In order to better use limited capacity, attention is usually focused on
non-routine events whereas recurring events are dealt with semi-consciously (Cyert
and March, 1963; Postrel and Rumelt, 1992; Simon, 1947). The semi-conscious
processing of repetitive events requires less cognitive resources, as routines guide search
by experience and reduce the space of behavioral options that managers should scan
(Winter, 1985; Shapira, 1994; cf. Inbar, 1979; Swaan and Lissowska, 1996; Garud and
Rappa, 1994). This procedure leads to an increase in the available cognitive potential
that may be used to attend to non-routine events (Reason, 1990).
There is clear empirical evidence that further illuminates how routines allow
individuals to save on mental efforts and thus preserve limited information-processing
and decision-making capacity. A survey-based study of US hospitals indicates that
routines achieve this by establishing organizational predispositions to respond to issues
in certain ways (Ashmos et al., 1998). Experiments indicate that routines also
economize on the time necessary for reaching a solution, allowing for spontaneous
reactions even under constraint situations, such as time constraints (Betsch et al., 1998).
3.4 Reducing uncertainty

Uncertainty poses problems in decision-making because the likelihood of each
outcome from a set of possible specific outcomes is initially unknown. The standard
strategy to deal with such uncertainty is therefore to increase the amount of
information, improving the basis for estimation of the probabilities and their accuracy.
Some authors argue that a stronger, pervasive form of uncertainty exists (Knight, 1921;
March and Simon, 1958; Keynes, 1973). Pervasive uncertainty refers to situations where
neither all the different outcomes, nor their probabilities are initially known, and which
are so ill structured that the possible outcomes will remain unknown despite any
increase in information. The reason is that when more information is made available,
its underlying meaning is not clear, leading to ambiguity in the interpretation of
the information (a condition known as ‘equivocality’; Daft and Lengel, 1986). The
implication is that new data does not contribute to improving the estimates of the
probabilities, and may even increase uncertainty (cf. Weick, 1979).
In situations of uncertainty, particular pervasive uncertainty, routines make an
important contribution to actors’ ability to pick a course of action (Weiss and Ilgen,
1985; Gersick and Hackman, 1990; Dosi and Egidi, 1991; Langlois and Everett, 1994;
Scapens, 1994; Fransmann, 1998; Munby et al., 2003; cf. Suchman, 1987).14 The link
14
The term ‘actors’ ability to pick a course of action’ is used as an overarching category for choosing,
deliberately or not, between a number of behavioral options. This term also provides some precision of
the expression ‘reducing uncertainty’.
658 M. C. Becker
between uncertainty and behavioral regularities was expressed most clearly by Heiner,
who wrote that ‘. . . greater uncertainty will cause rule-governed behavior to exhibit
increasingly predictable regularities, so that uncertainty becomes the basic source of
predictable behavior’ (Heiner, 1983: 570). Arguments can be found which turn the
direction of causality so increases in routinization may be viewed as an uncertainty
decreasing strategy. The capacity of routines to help actors deal with pervasive
uncertainty stems from two effects: by fixing certain parameters, firms may increase
predictability and, at the same time, free limited cognitive resources (Hodgson, 1988;
North, 1990; Baumol, 2002). The first mechanism can work on various levels: on the
societal level, societal institutions such as laws, norms and so forth establish a certain
level of predictability for all members of the society. Within the firm, formal institutions
such as standard operating procedures, combined with informal institutions such as
norms in teams, establish certain expectations for the members of the firm.15
Empirical results support the idea that routines can indeed help actors cope with
uncertainty, even in its stronger forms. An in-depth study of housing recovery after
earthquakes in Mexico City and Los Angeles concluded that ‘routines are a necessity,
because without them, policy formulation and implementation would be lost in a
jungle of detail and uncertainty. With them, subsidiary questions can be handled
summarily, and inexperienced protagonists will avoid major errors’ (Inam, 1997: 200;
cf. Inam, 1999). In an experimental study routines were seen to ‘enable individuals
to . . . radically reduce the complexity of individual decisions’ (Egidi, 1996: 304). A
survey-based study of Danish firms in six industries tested a set of hypotheses
pertaining to the uncertainty-reducing effect of routines, explicitly taking into account
pervasive forms of uncertainty (Becker and Knudsen, 2004). In particular, routinisation
was tested against increased information flow as a way of dealing with uncertainty.
The most important outcome of the study was that results strongly support the
hypothesis that increasing routinization will decrease the decision maker’s experience
of pervasive uncertainty (Becker and Knudsen, 2004). The findings of Gittell’s (2002)
survey-based study of care provider groups in acute-care hospitals point in the same
direction. Analyzing the performance effects of routines and other coordination
mechanisms, the study finds that input uncertainty increased, rather than decreased the
performance effects of routines. In the face of uncertainty, routines are therefore
increasingly effective (Gittell, 2002: 1424). Recent simulation-based studies provide
additional support. Hodgson and Knudsen (2004) model boundedly rational decision
makers attempting to achieve coordination in a simple case, deciding on which side of
the road to drive on. Their simulations demonstrate that habits and routines help
boundedly rational decision makers cope with uncertainty when they try to achieve
coordination.
15
Becker and Knudsen (2004) provide a more detailed treatment of the argument presented in this
section.
3.5 Stability
To the extent that routines recur without much change, they provide stability
(Hodgson, 1993a; Langlois, 1992; Nelson, 1994; Coombs and Metcalfe, 2000; Amit and
Belcourt, 1999). There are two different arguments for why routines provide stability.
The argument of the Carnegie school is that as long as an existing routine gives
satisfactory results, no conscious cognitive problem solving is triggered to find another
way to achieve the task (March and Simon, 1958; Cyert and March, 1963). The other
argument is a cost argument: whenever a mode of executing a particular task is
changed, this entails costs. New participants need to be identified, and explicit or
implicit contracts and understandings about the actors need to be adjusted (Nelson,
1994).
Stability has important effects on organizations. Stability provides a baseline
against which to assess changes, compare and learn (Langlois, 1992; Postrel and Rumelt,
1992; Shapira, 1994; Tyre and Orlikowski, 1996). Without a stable baseline to compare
with, drawing inferences from changes is impossible (Knudsen, 2002a). The
stability-providing effect of routines is therefore important for learning. Stability,
furthermore, gives rise to predictability, which in turn aids coordination (Cyert and
March, 1963; Nelson and Winter, 1982; Langlois and Everett, 1994; Inkpen and Crossan,
1995).
At times, the stability-providing effect of routines does, however, develop into a
pathology. In such a case, routines persist despite negative performance feedback
(Steinbruner, 1974; Heiner, 1983; Kilduff, 1992; Leonard-Barton, 1995; Rumelt, 1995;
Hirshleifer and Welch, 1998). They also lead to inertia. The reason is not that feedback
mechanisms are absent. Routines (due to the interactions they are composed of) enable
feedback, but the feedback is ignored.
The most important empirical finding relating to stability, however, refers to how
change is endogenous to routines themselves. A number of case studies of work in naval
navigation and airline cockpits (Hutchins, 1991, 1995), call centers and libraries
(Pentland and Rueter, 1994), high-tech firms (Costello, 1996, 2000), mobile phone
networks (Narduzzo et al., 2000), housing organizations (Feldman, 2000, 2003), teams
of surgeons (Edmondson et al., 2001), the NHS and a chemical firm (Johnson, 2000),
shop floors in the auto industry (Adler et al., 1999), in software firms (Orlikowski,
2002) and an analysis of the Cuban Missile Crisis (McKeown, 2001) have concluded
that routines are not inert, but typically change over time. Empirical studies of a
housing organization by Martha Feldman (Feldman, 2000, 2003) have underlined that
routines have a great potential for change due to an internal dynamic—participants
responding to the outcomes of previous iterations of a routine. Organizational routines
thus contribute to both stability and change, and play an important role for
organizational flexibility. Empirical evidence therefore now increasingly contrasts the
idea that routines are inert. Rather, the emerging idea is that routines often change
incrementally. For instance, the decision-making routine for monitoring the progress
of ongoing marketing campaigns might be ‘unchanged’ in that weekly meetings take
660 M. C. Becker
place between the head of the marketing department, the head of the sales department,
and the respective product managers, and follow the same basic steps, i.e. reviewing and
discussing incoming data. At a certain point in time, reports might be received not in
paper form, but in electronic form—an incremental change in the routine. We know
from the literature that artifacts such as information technology have an impact on the
processes that they are used in (Hutchins, 1991, 1995; Clark, 1997; D’Adderio, 2001,
2003). Even such a seemingly irrelevant change changes the routine, the pattern of
recurrent interaction, with important consequences. Electronic documents, for
instance, enable automatic search, which makes certain facts much easier to detect.
There are many possibilities for incremental changes, regarding the artifacts involved,
the frequency of repetition, the participants, etc. Changes in all these dimensions can
potentially have an impact on the interaction, and therefore change the routine further.
Such incremental change is an essential characteristic of routines, and not an anomaly
or exception. Over time, a series of such incremental changes might then add up to
some more substantial gradual change. In this way, routines are capable of adapting to
novel circumstances. Moreover, such change is endogenous, and can be explained by
analyzing how routines change incrementally. As it turns out, the role of actors in
responding to, amongst others, previous recurrences of the routine, is crucial (Feldman,
2000, 2003; Feldman and Pentland, 2003).
3.6 Storing knowledge

Routines store knowledge. In Nelson and Winter (1982), an entire section, entitled
‘Routine as organizational memory’, elaborates ‘that the routinisation of activity in an
organization constitutes the most important form of storage of the organization’s
specific operational knowledge’ (Nelson and Winter, 1982: 99). Routines (and the
supporting skill packages) are a key repository of knowledge in the firm (Winter, 1995)
in the sense that they ‘represent successful solutions to particular problems’ (Dosi et al.,
1992: 191–192; Nelson and Winter, 1982; Winter, 1987a; Levitt and March, 1988; Miner,
1994; Teece and Pisano, 1994; Hodgson, 1998; Phillips, 2002; Zollo and Winter, 2002;
Lillrank, 2003; cf. Grant, 1991, 1996; March et al., 1991). What sets routines as
knowledge repository apart from other kinds of knowledge repositories such as
databases and documents, is that routines are widely credited with being able to store
tacit knowledge (Winter, 1987b, 1994; Teece and Pisano, 1994; Teece et al., 1997;
Hodgson, 1998, 1999b; Cohendet et al., 1999; Lazaric, 2000; Knott, 2003). The concept
of routines is helpful for understanding how the productive knowledge of firms (in
particular tacit knowledge) is stored, applied, decays and changes. To better understand
why, consider the following. Productive knowledge (what inputs to use, how to
transform them, etc.) can be held by individuals and/or the organization. Organizations
structure the activity of its members, including activity in which their individually
held knowledge is applied. Routines thus capture the ‘individually-held-knowledge-
applied-in-the-firm’ at its joints, namely, in its application (rather than attempting
to describe a person’s ‘knowledge stock’, as attempted in exams). At the same time,
routines also capture collectively held knowledge, i.e. that knowledge, which is held by
the firm, but is more than the knowledge held by its individual members. Such
knowledge could in principle be held in several knowledge repositories, for instance in
documents, databases, artifacts (such as prototypes) and physical layout. Tacit
knowledge, however, can not be held in such repositories.
One contribution of empirical research that helps to understand the role of routines
as knowledge repositories for tacit knowledge is the notion of declarative and
procedural knowledge. As Cohen and Bacdayan (1994: 554) have explained, the
term ‘procedural knowledge’ characterizes knowledge of how things are done, which
is relatively inarticulate and encompasses both cognitive and motor activities. That
definition is very close to Polanyi’s (1967) definition of tacit knowledge, but adds some
precision, namely that motor activities make up an important part of procedural
knowledge. If we interpret the term widely, we can say that the activity involved in
procedural knowledge is not just limited to cognitive activity. Now, having argued
that routines capture the individually held knowledge at its joints, we can add the
argument that they also capture the collectively held knowledge very well (routines
involve multiple actors, see Section 2.3). Note that a thorough mapping of a routine
would also include the documents and artifacts used. Maybe the best example of such
a mapping are Hutchin’s studies, which describe in detail the artifacts, mnemonics,
activities and interactions involved in navigation of a ship (Hutchins, 1991) and an
airplane (Hutchins, 1995). Various empirical investigations support the idea that
routines store knowledge, including tacit knowledge: case studies into high-tech firms
(Costello, 2000), an analysis of the history of the US bicycle industry (Dowell and
Swaminathan, 2000), experiments (Cohen and Bacdayan, 1994) and case studies of
the replication of best-practice routines after the take-over of banks (Winter and
Szulanski, 2001a,b; Szulanski and Winter, 2002). A further insight added by empirical
research is that changes in the knowledge held in the organization, for example the
creation and articulation of knowledge, have an impact on the routines in use. As case
studies in the French food and steel industries have illustrated, such changes put the
routines and the ‘truce’ surrounding them in question (Lazaric and Denis, 2001;
Lazaric et al., 2003). Interesting findings have also been generated with regard to
the dispersedness of knowledge and the role of routines in dealing with it.
Dispersedness of knowledge means that actors have only a partial overlap of knowledge.
The conclusion of Egidi’s (1996) experimental study was that routines are one way
to deal with such a situation, allowing to re-create missing knowledge due to the
recombination of components of routines. From their study of technicians at a mobile
phone company, Narduzzo et al. (2000) add the insight that routines are sometimes
used as ‘quarry’, that is, they are used as ‘a system of manipulable elements’, as a
‘structuring resource’ for manipulating the list of activities and restructuring their
position in time. Routines are used as heuristics: instead of being executed in a precise
way, they are followed as a guideline, with a rather high portion of variation injected
(Suchman, 1983).
662 M. C. Becker
4. Conclusion
The literature review has shown there is a substantial literature that focuses on routines
and attempts to apply the concept of routines in empirical studies of organizations.
Against this background, it is time to assess what has been achieved. What are routines?
And what do we know about the effects routines have on organizations?
Two different interpretations of the term ‘routines’ are widespread in the literature:
as behavioral regularities and as cognitive regularities. [A third interpretation of
routines as propensities has been (re-)established in the literature recently.16] In the first
case, routines are most precisely described as ‘recurrent interaction patterns’, as
described above. In the second case, routines are seen as rules, standard operating
procedures, etc. One conclusion from the literature review is that the term ‘routines’
refers to a broad range of regularities in the economy. Because the term has been used
for referring to both cognitive and behavioral regularities, an important conclusion
from the literature review is the necessity to always be precise which of the two kinds of
regularities one refers to. We will come back to the issue below.
Consensus is discernible regarding the question of the effects of routines on
organizations. Broadly speaking, routines allow organizations to do four things. First
and foremost, routines enable coordination. The capability of routines to enable
coordination builds on the basis of a balance between the interests of the participants in
the routine (the so-called ‘truce’). Triggers play an important role in bringing about
coordination. Second, routines provide some degree of stability of behavior. It should
be clear by now that ‘stability’ is a relative term—it always includes the potential change
that is endogenous to the routine due to the agency of its participants (Feldman, 2000,
2003). The stability of behavior has the implication that expectations about the
behavior of others can be formed. Third, when tasks are routinized, these tasks can
often be executed in the realm of the sub-conscious, thereby economizing on limited
cognitive resources. Fourth, routines bind knowledge, including tacit knowledge.
Moreover, routines carve a crucially important aspect of knowledge right at its joints,
namely, its application. For this reason, routines are also considered as the building
blocks of organizational capabilities (Dosi et al., 2000; Winter, 2003).
At this point we should also recall that when Nelson and Winter (1982) invigorated
research on organizational routines, they did so by pointing to the potential of fitting
the concept of organizational routines into the evolutionary framework. How far have
we come along this route of inquiry? It is remarkable that attempts at actually specifying
how routines are varied, selected, and retained, are very few still. Winter has pursued the
issue of the replication of routines (Winter, 1990, 1995; Winter and Szulanski, 2001a,b;
16
The interpretation of routines as propensities has recently been (re-)established by Hodgson (2003)
and Hodgson and Knudsen (2003a,b, 2004). They emphasize that routines are not behavior, but see
routines as stored behavioral capacities which involve knowledge and memory. They involve
organizational structures and individual habits which, when triggered, lead to sequential behaviors
(Hodgson and Knudsen, 2003a).
Szulanski and Winter, 2002; see also Szulanski, 1999; Hodgson and Knudsen, 2003a,b;
Knott, 2003; Becker and Lazaric, 2004). Research on how routines are changed
(variation), and how they are selected, has been much thinner on the ground (see Witt,
2001; Massini et al., 2002). That routines have often been associated with stability and
inertia has probably made it tempting to frame the discussion in terms of variation
despite routines, and has hampered research on the variation of routines. It has certainly
not helped that such an association is also supported by the every-day meaning of the
term in many languages. Research does, of course, exist that in some way or the other
discusses variation in relation to routines. Only a series of recent publications
(Feldman, 2000, 2003; Feldman and Pentland, 2003; cf. Salvato, 2003) has firmly
established that variation and change are phenomena that are inherent and endogenous
to routines, not in opposition to them. The topic of the selection of routines, finally,
has been almost completely unbreached until recently, at least if we consider studies
that focus on the issue head-on (for exceptions, see Knudsen, 2002b; Plunkett, 2002;
Hodgson and Knudsen, 2003a).
Against this background, it is not surprising that progress on the routines-portion of
the Nelson and Winter (1982) program has been slow. Speaking for the social sciences
more generally, other attempts at identifying ‘the equivalent of the gene in the social
realm’ and fitting it into an evolutionary theory have also run into problems, as
Hodgson (2003) and Hodgson and Knudsen (2003a,b) point out. The most notable
other candidate is the meme (Dawkins, 1976). Just like the notion of an organizational
routine, definitional ambiguity surrounds the use of the term ‘meme’, which some
authors take to refer to a unit of cultural imitation (Dawkins, 1976), actively contagious
ideas (Lynch, 1996) or the state of a node in a neuronal network (Aunger, 2002), to
name just a few definitions. Just like the notion of organizational routines, there are
different ideas about whether memes are behavior or instructions for behavior
(Blackmore, 1999). Finally, and again just like the notion of organizational routines, the
causal mechanisms by which ideas lead to behavior are not identified (Hodgson, 2003).
Unfortunately, it does not seem likely that we can expect an easy breakthrough by
drawing on ideas from memetics. We need to turn back to what we know about
routines, and continue to improve our understanding of routines, their effects on
organizations, and how precisely they fit in an evolutionary theory of the economy. Let
me draw some conclusions from the literature review that might be helpful in this
endeavour.
The literature review has identified several sources of ambiguity still haunting the
concept of routines: (i) the distinction of individual and collective recurrent activity
patterns; (ii) the fact that for some authors, the term ‘routines’ refers to cognitive
regularities (rules) and for others, to behavioral patterns (recurrent interaction
patterns); and (iii) the neglect of agency in the executing of behavior patterns, or in the
process of expressing rules in action.
Let me briefly address each of the three points. (i) Since the authoritative statement
of Dosi et al. (2000), we should all take distinguishing individual and collective
664 M. C. Becker
recurrent activity patterns (habits and routines) serious and make sure that we
eliminate this source of ambiguity.
(ii) Unfortunately, the issue is not that simple regarding the cognitive, behavioral,
and propensity-interpretations of the term ‘routines’. The term is used by many people
in many different contexts, and, it seems, to describe many different ‘things’. The only
commonality amongst those is that they have to do something with repetition or
regularity (such as recurrent activity, rules that lead to recurrent activity, the content of
tasks, effects of recurrent activity such as boredom). It appears that not one individual
concept can capture all of them, lest the concept be so wide that it inevitably lacked
sharpness. A possible solution is to use different terms for referring to behavioral
regularities, cognitive regularities and propensities. A number of arguments are con-
ceivable for why the term ‘routine’ should refer to one or the other. I will not get into
this debate here. Suffice it to note one detail at this point. In the literature, the term
‘routine’ is increasingly associated with behavior patterns17 (Jones and Craven, 2001;
Karim and Mitchell, 2000; Bessant et al., 2001; Edmondson et al., 2001; Emery, 2002;
Jarzabkowski and Wilson, 2002; Gittell, 2002; Zollo et al., 2002; Lillrank, 2003; Salvato,
2003). Note that these are empirical studies.18 At the same time, recent contributions to
evolutionary theory in economics argue that routines, if understood as behavior
patterns, do not fit in the evolutionary framework (Hodgson, 2003; Knudsen, 2002a,
2004; Hodgson and Knudsen, 2003a,b). On the basis of the literature review, the gap
between a behavioral and a cognitive definition of routines appears to be aligned with a
gap between the empirical studies of routines in organizations on the one hand, and the
literature focusing on developing evolutionary theory on the other. This gap suggests
the following fruitful research questions: if recurrent interaction patterns (‘routines’ as
understood in the empirical literature) are important in organizations, then precisely
what is the role of recurrent interaction patterns in evolutionary theory? Is there a place
for recurrent interaction patterns in evolutionary theory, and precisely what place is it?
What are the mechanisms by which routines (defined in a way that is consistent with
evolutionary theory) are varied, selected and retained? How precisely do cognitive
regularities and behavior regularities relate to each other? (In other words, how do rules
bring about recurrent interaction patterns, and how do recurrent interaction patterns
bring about rules?) Interpreting routines as propensities to express a certain behavior or
thought (Hodgson, 2003; Hodgson and Knudsen, 2003a,b, 2004) could hold the key to
advancing our understanding of these questions.
On the final point, (iii) the neglect of agency in the carrying out of recurrent
interaction patterns, Feldman’s recent contributions (2000, 2003) have provided us
with a more advanced starting point for addressing the first question just raised, how
17
‘Behavior’ is used here in distinction to the understanding of routines as cognitive regularities, and
thus as an umbrella term in the sense of footnotes 5 and 7.
18
It makes sense that empirical studies of routines would have a bias towards a definition of routines as
behaviour patterns, due to their observability.
cognitive regularities and behavior regularities relate to each other. Identifying precisely
how agency influences the implementation and evolution of rules is an important
research task for further research (see Hodgson, 2004: ch. 2; Hodgson and Knudsen,
2004). At the same time, it is a concrete step towards joining the endeavors made in
empirical research on routines on the one hand, and conceptual research on the
evolutionary framework in economics on the other hand. Closing this double
gap—between different streams of literature and between the two different aspects the
term routines refers to in the literature (behavioral and cognitive regularities)—appears
to hold the potential to advance the Nelson and Winter (1982) project.
Acknowledgements
Preliminary versions of parts of this paper have been presented at the DRUID Nelson
and Winter conference, Aalborg, June 2001, and the EAEPE conference, Siena,
November, 2001. The author is grateful to Giovanni Dosi, Geoff Hodgson, Thorbjørn
Knudsen, Witold Kwasnicki, Nathalie Lazaric, Jochen Runde, Dylan Sutherland,
Malcolm Warner, Francesco Zirpoli, participants of the above mentioned conferences
and of the 2002 workshop on Empirical Research on Routines (Odense, Denmark) for
comments and suggestions. I am particularly grateful to three anonymous referees for
their helpful comments and suggestions. All remaining errors and omissions have been
produced without any help. The article is dedicated to the memory of the late Leonilda
Marcheselli, in whose good company much work on the revision was carried out.
Address for correspondence

Markus C. Becker, Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Bureau
d’Economie Théorique et Appliquée (BETA), Université Louis Pasteur, 61, Avenue de la
Forêt Noire, F-67085 Strasbourg Cedex, France. Email: becker@cournot.u-strasbg.fr.
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Industrial and Corporate Change, Volume 13, Number 4, pp.

Organizational routines: a review of the

2. The characteristics of routines

2.3 The collective nature of routines

2.4 Mindlessness vs. effortful accomplishment

2.5 The processual nature of routines

2.6 Context-dependence, embeddedness and specificity

2.7 Path dependence

3. The effects of routines on organizations

3.1 Coordination and control

running routines can be observed is due to an (implicit) truce established between

3.3 Economizing on cognitive resources

3.4 Reducing uncertainty

3.6 Storing knowledge

Address for correspondence

preliminary remarks,’ in G. Dosi, R. Giannetti and P. A. Toninelli (eds), Technology and

Katona, G. (1946), ‘Psychological analysis of business decisions and expectations,’ American

March, J. G. and H. A. Simon (1958 [1993]), Organizations. Blackwell: Oxford.

Nelson, R. R. and S. G. Winter (1982), An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Belknap

Competitive Challenge—Strategies for Industrial Innovation and Renewal, pp. 157–184.

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