Role Of Organizational Routines Research Articles

The moderating role of organizational routines in the relationship between behavioral repertoire and core competencies: Evidence from Jordan

The moderating role of organizational routines in the relationship between behavioral repertoire and core competencies: Evidence from Jordan

Understanding and Solving Late Payment: The Role of Organizational Routines

European legislation has so far failed to alleviate late payment. We introduce the concept of organizational routine; this contributes to understanding late payment and its persistence and focuses on more effective ways of alleviating it. The case study between a large Spanish company and its Spanish SME suppliers gives an exemplary illustration of organizational (trade credit) routines and their dynamics in a two-sided business relationship. The large company’s imbalanced routine and the SMEs’ balanced routine explain late payment. Potential for change and the alleviation of late payment is to be found in routines’ internal dynamics and in participants’ understanding.

A sociological exploration of the tensions related to interprofessional collaboration in acute-care discharge planning

ABSTRACTPatient discharge is a key concern in hospitals, particularly in acute care, given the multifaceted and challenging nature of patients’ healthcare needs. Policies on discharge have identified the importance of interprofessional collaboration, yet research has described its limitations in this clinical context. This study aimed to extend our understanding of interprofessional interactions related to discharge in a general internal medicine setting by using sociological theories to illuminate the existence of, and interplay between, structural factors and microlevel practices. An ethnographic approach was employed to obtain an in-depth insight into healthcare providers’ perspectives, behaviours, and interactions regarding discharge. Data collection involved observations, interviews, and document analysis. Approximately 65 hours of observations were undertaken, 23 interviews were conducted with healthcare providers, and government and hospital discharge documents were collected. Data were analysed using a directed content approach. The findings indicate the existence of a medically dominated division of healthcare labour in patient discharge with opportunities for some interprofessional negotiations; the role of organizational routines in facilitating and challenging interprofessional negotiations in patient discharge; and tensions in organizational priorities that impact an interprofessional approach to discharge. The findings provide insight into the various levels at which interventions can be targeted to improve interprofessional collaboration in discharge while recognizing the organizational tensions that challenge an interprofessional approach.

Interprofessional communication failures in acute care chains: How can we identify the causes?

Although communication failures between professionals in acute care delivery occur, explanations for these failures remain unclear. We aim to gain a deeper understanding of interprofessional communication failures by assessing two different explanations for them. A multiple case study containing six cases (i.e. acute care chains) was carried out in which semi-structured interviews, physical artifacts and archival records were used for data collection. Data were entered into matrices and the pattern-matching technique was used to examine the two complementary propositions. Based on the level of standardization and integration present in the acute care chains, the six acute care chains could be divided into two categories of care processes, with the care chains equally distributed among the categories. Failures in communication occurred in both groups. Communication routines were embedded within organizations and descriptions of communication routines in the entire acute care chain could not be found. Based on the results, failures in communication could not exclusively be explained by literature on process typology. Literature on organizational routines was useful to explain the occurrence of communication failures in the acute care chains. Organizational routines can be seen as repetitive action patterns and play an important role in organizations, as most processes are carried out by means of routines. The results of this study imply that it is useful to further explore the role of organizational routines on interprofessional communication in acute care chains to develop a solution for failures in handover practices.

Understanding Organizational Evolution: Toward a Research Agenda using Generalized Darwinism

The terms ‘evolution’ and ‘coevolution’ are widely used in organization studies but rarely defined. Often it is unclear whether they refer to single entities or populations. When specific evolutionary processes are suggested, the labelling is often misleading. For example, in the debate over the roles of individual adaptation and competitive selection, the ‘selectionist’ position of Michael Hannan and John Freeman, which emphasizes the role of selection and stress the limits of individual firm adaptability, is often described as ‘Darwinian’ whereas opposing views that emphasize adaptability are described as ‘Lamarckian’. But these labels are not strictly dichotomous. Scholars have shown that core Darwinian principles, resulting from abstract ontological communality rather than analogy, apply to social evolution. This opens up a research agenda using the principles of generalized Darwinism and the replicator–interactor framework to help understand the evolution of organizations. Some illustrations of the conceptual value of this approach are provided, including understanding the entwinement of selection and adaptation, the nature and role of organizational routines, the place of strategic choice and the growth of organizational complexity. The framework of generalized Darwinism also helps to bridge apparently divergent perspectives in the business strategy and organizational ecology literatures.

Ongoing innovation through knowledge combination routines

This study examines the role of organizational routines in producing ongoing innovation. Case studies of sixteen project- based firms reveal that these firms repeatedly produce novel outcomes by me...

Constancy and Change in Work Practice in Schools: The Role of Organizational Routines

Background/ContextThough change is constant in organizations, determining how to successfully implement planned change has been a perennial challenge for both organizational scholars and practitioners. While the empirical knowledge base on planned change in schools and other organizations offers numerous insights, the inattention to activity, or the practice of leading and managing change, remains. Organizational change theory, and specifically organizational routines, offers a useful lens with which to examine planned change in work practice in schools.PurposeThe purpose of this study is to understand the role organizational routines play in changing school work practice.Research DesignWe employed a longitudinal case study of leadership practice at Adams, a K–8 urban school, over the course of four years. We spent 90 days collecting observations, interviews, and artifacts from a wide range of individuals (e.g., teachers and administrators). We identified one key routine, the Five Week Assessment Routine, and analyzed the ostensive and performative aspects of the routine, identifying similarities and differences in the routine over time. In addition, we identified two different kinds of change, planned and unplanned, as well as the reasons why participants changed the routine.ConclusionsOrganizational routines structure work practice, stabilizing it over time, even in the face of considerable change. They represent one mechanism for sustaining leadership. In addition, routines can be a source of both episodic and continuous change in the work place. New routines can serve as a mechanism to build instructional coherence, internal accountability, and professional community. This account suggests that one way to change norms and culture in an organization is through the design and implementation of new routines. Leaders can create opportunities for change in school practice. By designing and supporting an organizational routine, the leaders at Adams focused the practice of the faculty on improving teaching and learning in ways they had never done before. The case of Adams demonstrates that in the enactment of a routine, school staff can also create change in practice. How they make sense of the routine, and integrate it into their practice, can create shifts in teaching and learning. Change happens in the interplay between individual agency and the structure of the routine. Through a case study of one organizational routine in one school, we analyzed how organizational routines can enable both change and constancy in school practice.

Measuring Dynamic Capabilities: Practices and Performance in Semiconductor Manufacturing

Research on dynamic capabilities emphasizes the importance and role of organizational routines in explaining interfirm differences in performance. While performance differences are well documented, few empirical analyses explore the processes inside organizations that lead to dynamic capabilities or attempt to define and measure their performance effects. This paper examines one type of dynamic capability – the development and introduction of new process technologies in semiconductor manufacturing. This dynamic capability is an important source of competitiveness in the semiconductor industry, given the short product lifecycles, rapid price declines, and rapid technological advances that define the industry. Because much of the knowledge that underpins semiconductor manufacturing is idiosyncratic, firm‐level R&D organization and information technology practices that facilitate problem solving and learning‐based improvement provide important and enduring advantages. We derive models of the rate of improvement in manufacturing yield (i.e. the quality of production) and cycle time (i.e. the speed of production) following the development and introduction of new process technologies in manufacturing facilities, and test the empirical specifications of these models. The ways in which semiconductor manufacturers accumulate experience and articulate and codify knowledge within the manufacturing environment build new process development and introduction dynamic capabilities that improve performance.

Organizational Routines, Situated Learning and Processes of Change in Project-Based Organizations

Understanding and effecting change in project-based forms of organization is made difficult by the dispersed nature of management practices in such organizations and their effects upon the reinforcement of localized practices and routines that militate against the spread oforganization-wide change initiatives. Taking a perspective that is informed by the “situated” approach to knowledge and learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991), this paper focuses upon the role of organizational routines (Becker, 2004) in constraining or enabling the spread of new management practices within the firm. Drawing upon four case studies of change within UK construction firms, the paper examines the relationship between new and existing management practices and routines, focusing upon the effects of agency and managerial power and influence. Two key dimensions are revealed that influence the nature and extent of change: the extent to which new management initiatives interfere with existing project management practices; and the extent to which they disrupt the balance of power/knowledge within the organization. Implications for understanding and managing change in project-based organ-ization are drawn out and assessed.