When Relationships Get in the Way: The emergence and persistence of care routines

Abstract

Past research has shown that routines can be a vehicle for both stability and change in organizations. It is unclear however how this relationship alters and solidifies over time. In this paper, the changing behaviours of three newly-formed teams within a domiciliary care organization are tracked over a period of two years. It was seen that self-reinforcing processes shaped the emergence and persistence of action patterns within these groups. The first process achieved coordination benefits which drove the emergence of routines, as ‘action patterns’ were first negotiated and then assigned to members of the care team. The second self-reinforcing process involved sets of expectations which deepened interpersonal relationships between the care worker and client. The impact of both these processes, altered the ostensive-performative duality, as routines emerged and persisted over time. This study therefore highlights the changing dynamics of stability and change within routines, and the key role played by social relations in this process.

Breaking with the Past to Face the Future? Organizational path dependence in family businesses

“…Synthesizing extant research, Dobusch and Schüßler (2013) propose four types of self-reinforcing mechanisms: coordination effects, complementarity effects, investment and learning effects, and expectation effects, in line with recent empirical investigations of path dependence (see e.g. Breslin, 2022;Stache & Sydow, 2022). The data revealed that expectation effects especially, as well as learning and investment effects, were dominant in these family firm cases.…”

“…As elaborated in the model section, path breakage was often triggered by external shocks coinciding with family-internal changes. While these two systems are not in place in nonfamily firms, the findings still highlight the importance that social relationships might also have in other types of firm –so far given little thought in the context of path dependence (Breslin, 2022).…”

“…Specifically, we show how power hierarchies, network embeddedness and chronicle orientation interact during path formation and path-breaking. Researchers have highlighted a need for better understanding of these processes, especially the role of power hierarchies (Breslin, 2022; Sydow et al, 2020); these findings confirm their pivotal role. The dynamics of formal and informal power hierarchies are part of the idiosyncrasies of family businesses (Chrisman, Chua, Pearson, & Barnett, 2012).…”

From Fit to Fitting: A routine dynamics perspective on M&A synergy realization

“…Routine dynamics rejects the idea that successful implementation primarily relies on how well routines have been designed, or that it is mainly a matter of convincing routine participants of the projected benefits with the intention of avoiding resistance (Breslin, 2022;Wegener & Glaser, 2021). As Pentland and Feldman (2008, p. 245) found in their study of a failed software implementation process, designing routines while hoping for actions is often grounded in a "naïve top-downism [that] assumes that good artifacts will result in good performance."…”

“…Routine dynamics rejects the idea that successful implementation primarily relies on how well routines have been designed, or that it is mainly a matter of convincing routine participants of the projected benefits with the intention of avoiding resistance (Breslin, 2022; Wegener & Glaser, 2021). As Pentland and Feldman (2008, p. 245) found in their study of a failed software implementation process, designing routines while hoping for actions is often grounded in a “naïve top-downism [that] assumes that good artifacts will result in good performance.” In their conclusions, they urge organizational actors tasked with the design of routines not to treat them “like a piece of furniture” (Pentland & Feldman, 2008, p. 248) that can be moved and put up wherever needed, but instead to consider them as endogenously dynamic (Feldman & Pentland, 2003), potentially ambiguous (Yamauchi & Hiramoto, 2016), and part of a larger network of actors and actions (see Rosa et al, 2021).…”