Innovating routines in the business firm: what corporate tasks should they be accomplishing?

Abstract

One challenge in evolutionary economics is to give greater operational content to the notion of 'innovating routines' inside the firm. Historical and contemporary evidence suggests that such routines always have to deal with increasing specialization in knowledge production, increasing depth in knowledge sources and complexity in physical artefacts, and with the continuous matching of specific corporate competencies and organizational practices to the market opportunities offered by specific technologies. As a consequence, some innovating routines have always been important, such as those dealing with the tasks of co-ordination and integration within the firm, and of reducing uncertainty through learning. Others are becoming more so, such as those co-ordinating technological resources external to the firm, coping with systems and simulations, and adapting organizational practices to the requirements of radically changing technological opportunities. Copyright 2002, Oxford University Press.