Routine Dynamics: Creating and Filling Voids

The literature on routine dynamics widely explores how organizational routines endogenously change over time, emphasizing the benefits of such property. Until now, there has been relatively little research attention devoted to the potential challenges associated with routine changes. This is a problem in a world in flux, where adaptation is more of a continuous rather than intermittent need. The authors suggest that when routines change, the links they create between agents that enable coordination are destabilized, ultimately hindering organizational change. This work draws on a case study in the automotive industry, a sec- tor in which organizations are encountering significant changes in both their business environment and dominant technological design. The authors show that when new systems of organizational routines emerge to fill new spaces of action the established connections decay and generate relational and temporal voids, that is, missing connections among agents and across time. As these voids form, the change process of organizations is made more complex, no matter the emergence of new routines and agents’ willingness to change. The findings offer a fresh perspective on the impact of organizational routines in a “world in flux” by delving into the costly “side effect” of routine dynamics.