Path Dependence or Path Creation?

Garud, Raghu; Kumaraswamy, Arun; Karnøe, Peter

doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2010.00914.x

Cited by 239 publications

(427 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…The literature emphasizes that the resulting initial conditions are so consequential as to make changing paths difficult (Dosi 1982). Recently, scholars have suggested that such historically determinant explanations do not adequately admit the possibility for human agency (Kaplan and Tripsas 2008), and that actors can within limits influence circumstances through "path creation" and "mindful deviation" (Garud and Karnøe 2001). Our study demonstrates that temporal work to negotiate interpretations of the past, present and future is a crucial process that shapes the degree and direction of such creations and deviations.…”

Section: Implications For the Treatment Of The Past Present And Futumentioning

confidence: 78%

Temporal Work in Strategy Making

Kaplan

Orlikowski

2013

Organization Science

437

458

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This paper reports on a field study of strategy making in one organization facing an industry crisis. In a comparison of five strategy projects, we observed that organizational participants struggled with competing interpretations of what might emerge in the future, what was currently at stake, and even what had happened in the past. We develop a model of temporal work in strategy making that articulates how actors resolved differences and linked their interpretations of the past, present, and future so as to construct a strategic account that enabled concrete strategic choice and action. We found that settling on a particular account required it to be coherent, plausible and acceptable, otherwise breakdowns resulted. Such breakdowns could impede progress, but could also be generative in provoking a search for new interpretations and possibilities for action. The more intensely actors engaged in temporal work, the more likely the strategies departed from the status quo. Our model suggests that strategy cannot be understood as the product of more or less accurate forecasting without considering the multiple interpretations of present concerns and historical trajectories that help to constitute those forecasts. Projections of the future are always entangled with views of the past and present, and temporal work is the means by which actors construct and reconstruct the connections among them. These insights into the mechanisms of strategy making help explain the practices and conditions that produce organizational inertia and change. Temporal Work in Strategy Making-1 -A fundamental challenge for managers making strategy is coping with an uncertain future. In studying strategic change, scholars have emphasized the importance of sensemaking as a collective and often conflictual interpretive process for dealing with uncertainties about the business, the market, and the environment that lead to breakdowns in understandings and require cognitive reorientations to move forward (Balogun and Johnson 2004;Gioia and Chittipeddi 1991;Gioia et al. 1994;Kaplan 2008b;Maitlis and Sonenshein 2010;Rouleau 2005). These studies suggest that linking across interpretations of the past, present and future make action possible, but have left unexplained how and why some linkages work and some fail in practice, and, for those that do work, why some lead to the status quo and others produce change.Our study of strategy making in practice offers some answers to these questions. We found that managers -through a set of practices that we call "temporal work" -come to settle on particular strategic accounts that link interpretations of the past, present and future in ways that appear coherent, plausible and Settling on a strategic account, even if provisional, allows actors to shift from disagreeing or deliberating about meanings to implementing strategic choices, thus enabling the organization to move forward in the face of uncertainty. If a settlement breaks down, further temporal work is required in order to reconstruct a new str...

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Section: Implications For the Treatment Of The Past Present And Futumentioning

confidence: 78%

Temporal Work in Strategy Making

Kaplan

Orlikowski

2013

Organization Science

437

458

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We define agency as the realisation of the capacity of actors to translate their potential for action into actual practice (Scott, 2006). We see agency as the result of a collective and embedded capacity and hence developed and reproduced through actor networks and within the context of emerging structures (Garud et al, 2010). Finally, we explore what this means for the politics of niche protection, in which collective industrial and public policy support is secured for niches in the context of historically powerful incumbent regimes.…”

Section: Agency Politics and Narratives In Protective Space Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Seeing protective space as something functional to the imperatives of niche development, and that ought to shield, nurture and empower in certain ways for sustainability transitions, appears reasonable from a managerial or outsider perspective (Garud et al, 2010;Smith and Stirling, 2007).…”

Section: Agency Politics and Narratives In Protective Space Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An empirical focus on niche actors, and 'the melee of real-life dynamics, interactions, and of everyday practice' (Leach et al, 2007: 24;Hughes, 1983), soon indicates why any protections secured often tend to be incomplete or insufficient, from the perspective of niche advocates and strategic managers, and as a result have consequences for the development of socio-technical alternatives that fall short of their ideal (Smith, 2007;Romijn et al, 2010). Analysing and theorising the dynamics of niche-based approaches to sustainability transitions has to be complemented with an insider perspective that emphasises the embedded agency of actors involved in both niche construction and regime reproduction (Garud et al, 2010;(Zietsma and Lawrence, 2010;Smith and Stirling, 2007). Moreover, such a perspective also has to be politically informed, because, ultimately, niche agency results from advocates within different institutional positions and unequal access to resources influencing powerful actors more usually associated with incumbent regimes.…”

Section: Agency Politics and Narratives In Protective Space Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hence, the second part of the paper will also address the politics involved, with a particular focus on the role of political narratives in empowerment. The propositions in this part of our analysis are informed by insights from recent literature on institutional change (Phillips et al, 2004;Hardy and Maguire, 2010;Lawrence et al, 2009;Battilana et al, 2009;Garud et al, 2010;Zietsma and Lawrence, 2010;Hargrave and van den Ven, 2006) and network governance (Kooiman, 2003;Jessop, 1998Jessop, , 2003 Hence, there are two analytical questions guiding our discussion:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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With a little help from a stranger: The impact of external change agents on corporate sustainability investments

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We investigate the role external change agents (e.g., consultants), play in stimulating corporate sustainability investments. Using data on more than 5,300 energy efficiency investment decisions by 462 firms, we find that firms that draw more strongly on external change agents seize significantly more sustainable investment opportunities. We show that external change agents are more effective in stimulating investments if they broadly search for investment opportunities and are more strongly involved in the implementation of change initiatives. Moreover, surprisingly, we do not find that using internal change agents in parallel with external agents enhances the effectiveness of external change agents. Our findings have important implications for the literature on corporate sustainability as they point to external change agents as an important means of steering firms onto more sustainable pathways. Additionally, we shed light on the conditions under which external change agents can be used to most effectively overcome organizational path dependencies.

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Path Dependence or Path Creation?

Cited by 239 publications

References 41 publications

Temporal Work in Strategy Making

Temporal Work in Strategy Making

What is protective space? Reconsidering niches in transitions to sustainability

With a little help from a stranger: The impact of external change agents on corporate sustainability investments

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