In this article, we explore the potential tensions between the incentive systems of group of inve... more In this article, we explore the potential tensions between the incentive systems of group of inventors and knowledge diversity in a high tech firm.
Abstract: Organizational routines and capabilities have become key constructs not only in evoluti... more Abstract: Organizational routines and capabilities have become key constructs not only in evolutionary economics, but more recently also in business administration, specifically strategic management. In this chapter we explicate some of the underlying theoretical problems of ...
This paper adds to the growing empirical evidence on the importance of habits in governing human ... more This paper adds to the growing empirical evidence on the importance of habits in governing human behaviour, and sheds new light on individual inertia in relation to transportation behaviour. An enriched perspective rooted in Veblenian evolutionary economics (VEE) is used to construct a theoretical framework in order to analyse the processes at play in the formation and reinforcement of habits. The empirical study explores more specifically the synchronic processes strengthening the carusing habit. In addition to underlining the shortcomings of a "decision theory" perspective to address urban transportation behaviours, we find that synchronic habits can have a significant effect on behavioural inertia. Our results suggest the existence of positive feedback between the development of synchronic habits, qualitative perceptions of driving times and reinforcement of the car-using habit. The paper points out also that the diachronic dimension of habits would constitute another promising domain for further research on behavioural inertia in transportation.
Understanding organizational change is one of the great endeavors of students of organizations. O... more Understanding organizational change is one of the great endeavors of students of organizations. One proposition for how to tackle this challenge is to understand organizational change by analyzing how organizational routines change . Over several decades, a very considerable body of research has built up around the proposition that routines are the basic components of organizational behavior, and the repository of organizational capabilities March, 1963, Nelson and see Becker, 2004, for a review). From this perspective, organizational routines are a crucial part of any account of how organizations accomplish their tasks in society. They also hold one of the keys to understanding change in the economy, and for understanding how organizational capabilities are accumulated, transferred and applied . Organizational routines are units of analysis that capture change on a microlevel, and then allow us to 'zoom in' and make change, and its driving forces, more visible to the eye of the researcher. For an aspect of organizational behavior to emerge and persist as a 'routine', there must be a certain amount of stability to the conditions molding behavior: broad policies set by management, the conditions under which the particular routine in question is viewed as consistent with organizational goals and policies, explicit or implicit agreements among the various agents involved to do their parts of the actions needed to sustain the routine, etc. But many organizational routines are periodically, or even almost always, in flux. Indeed, a central proposition of routine theory is that organizations change what they are doing and how they are doing it by changing their routines. The change of routines may come at the instigation of management. Or the changes may come largely from forces and actions of agents internal to the routine. Some routines change faster and more drastically than others. For example, in many industries the capability of firms to compete depends on their ability to keep on introducing new products, or improving their processes of manufacture, or both, and such innovating requires continuing change in a range of the routines used in a firm. On
The development of high technology clusters is not a deterministic process, but one that is affec... more The development of high technology clusters is not a deterministic process, but one that is affected by the different dynamics of any attempts (intentional or otherwise) to coordinate activity and build a shared knowledge. This paper provides an illustration of these dynamics through the history of Sophia Antipolis, which has evolved from satellite platform to technopolis and from geographical proximity to organized proximity. Telecom Valley, a professional association of the actors of the telecommunication sector, and the Knowledge Management Platform, a project the association has initiated, have played a crucial role in this process. They succeeded to reduce 'cognitive distance', reinforcing proximity and giving a sense to the codification process inside the cluster.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study business models (BMs) for smart meters (SMs) and ... more Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study business models (BMs) for smart meters (SMs) and discuss related issues in the French institutional context. Because SM introduce deregulation on both the demand and supply sides, the authors argue that they represent an opportunity to “unlock” the system by enabling feedback to consumers. The authors discuss the empirical findings from the TICELEC (Technologies de l’Information pour une Consommation Electrique – Information Technology for Sustainable Electricity Consumption Behaviors) project which is an experimental initiative to measure potential energy savings through the implementation of SM, and to test behavioral change. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical data are from the TICELEC project and refer to a municipality in southern France. The project was designed to show the qualitative changes deriving from a new technology, and the quantitative changes in the form of real reductions in residential electricity consumption...
Despite recent calls for processual analysis of routines creation, little work has been done to i... more Despite recent calls for processual analysis of routines creation, little work has been done to investigate the entrepreneurial mechanisms that explain the creation and adoption of new routines. This paper provides a processual contribution to the study of organizational routines by proposing a model for routine creation, based on an analysis of collective entrepreneurial actions. Using an entrepreneurial bricolage lens, we show how agents, during the creation of new routines, develop mechanisms to adapt firm processes, enact external constraints and validate novel practices. Our analysis is based on a three-year collaborative study in a French biotechnology firm. We develop a processual model of routine creation comprising three phases: scanning, performing and adopting. The model provides new insights into the interplay between artefacts and entrepreneurial actions in the creation of new routines.
This article introduces this special issue on routines. It offers some suggestions as to why the ... more This article introduces this special issue on routines. It offers some suggestions as to why the concept of routines is considered central in methodological considerations of capabilities and organizational evolution. The contributors to this special issue propose various analytical tools, and provide some missing pieces from the puzzle related to the prominent role of routines. Issues discussed in the papers include methodological individualism. Routines lie between the individual and the firm levels of analysis because they are enacted by individuals in a social context. It is also suggested that a multilevel research agenda provides a finer grained analysis because organizational routines are not isolated units but are entangled among the various organizational layers.
The purpose of our contribution is to analyse the notion of routine as it is developed in recen... more The purpose of our contribution is to analyse the notion of routine as it is developed in recent economic literature in the light of two past economists, Joseph Schumpeter and Ludwig von Mises. We will focus on one peculiar feature put forward by the two Austrian economists, namely, on the distinction between adaptive / routine-minded behaviour on one side, and active / creative behaviour on the other. According to us, this feature is worth emphasizing since it permits to shed some new light on the long disputed Nelson and Winter's conception of routines. Our conjecture is that if Nelson and Winter had taken up the aforementioned distinction, they would have developed a richer view of economic behaviour and of its interweaving with in the firm or the social environment.
* Nous souhaitons remercier très vivement les auteurs qui ont bien voulu accepter de participer à... more * Nous souhaitons remercier très vivement les auteurs qui ont bien voulu accepter de participer à ce numéro. Notre reconnaissance va aussi aux rapporteurs des articles qui suivent et, plus particulièrement, à Nathalie Sigot qui, par son soutien, ses critiques et ses suggestions, a permis que l'entreprise soit menée jusqu'à son terme.
RESUME : Cet article porte sur une expérience de capitalisation des connaissances, avec productio... more RESUME : Cet article porte sur une expérience de capitalisation des connaissances, avec production d'un système à base de connaissances. Il s'agit du projet SACHEM qui porte sur le savoir-faire détenu par les personnes qui pilotent de manière experte la marche des hauts-fourneaux. L'unification et l'explicitation du savoir-faire, conservé jusqu'ici dans une certaine partie de la main d'œuvre, et la
* Nous souhaitons remercier très vivement les auteurs qui ont bien voulu accepter de participer à... more * Nous souhaitons remercier très vivement les auteurs qui ont bien voulu accepter de participer à ce numéro. Notre reconnaissance va aussi aux rapporteurs des articles qui suivent et, plus particulièrement, à Nathalie Sigot qui, par son soutien, ses critiques et ses suggestions, a permis que l'entreprise soit menée jusqu'à son terme.
The aim of this article is to understand permanence and changes inside organizational routines. F... more The aim of this article is to understand permanence and changes inside organizational routines. For this purpose, it seems important to explain how individual and collective memorisation occurs, so as to grasp how knowledge can be converted into routines. Although memorisation mechanisms imply a degree of durability, our procedural and declarative knowledge, and our memorisation processes, evolve so that individuals and organisations can project themselves into the future and innovate. Some authors highlight the necessity of dreaming and forgetting (Bergson 1896); others believe that emotions play a role in our memorisation processes (Damasio 1994). These dimensions are not only important at the individual level but also in an organisational context (Lazaric and Denis 2005; Reynaud 2005; Pentland and Feldman 2005).I review the individual dimension of these memorisation processes, with the Anderson’s distinction between procedural knowledge and declarative knowledge. I discuss the no...
In this article, we explore the potential tensions between the incentive systems of group of inve... more In this article, we explore the potential tensions between the incentive systems of group of inventors and knowledge diversity in a high tech firm.
Abstract: Organizational routines and capabilities have become key constructs not only in evoluti... more Abstract: Organizational routines and capabilities have become key constructs not only in evolutionary economics, but more recently also in business administration, specifically strategic management. In this chapter we explicate some of the underlying theoretical problems of ...
This paper adds to the growing empirical evidence on the importance of habits in governing human ... more This paper adds to the growing empirical evidence on the importance of habits in governing human behaviour, and sheds new light on individual inertia in relation to transportation behaviour. An enriched perspective rooted in Veblenian evolutionary economics (VEE) is used to construct a theoretical framework in order to analyse the processes at play in the formation and reinforcement of habits. The empirical study explores more specifically the synchronic processes strengthening the carusing habit. In addition to underlining the shortcomings of a "decision theory" perspective to address urban transportation behaviours, we find that synchronic habits can have a significant effect on behavioural inertia. Our results suggest the existence of positive feedback between the development of synchronic habits, qualitative perceptions of driving times and reinforcement of the car-using habit. The paper points out also that the diachronic dimension of habits would constitute another promising domain for further research on behavioural inertia in transportation.
Understanding organizational change is one of the great endeavors of students of organizations. O... more Understanding organizational change is one of the great endeavors of students of organizations. One proposition for how to tackle this challenge is to understand organizational change by analyzing how organizational routines change . Over several decades, a very considerable body of research has built up around the proposition that routines are the basic components of organizational behavior, and the repository of organizational capabilities March, 1963, Nelson and see Becker, 2004, for a review). From this perspective, organizational routines are a crucial part of any account of how organizations accomplish their tasks in society. They also hold one of the keys to understanding change in the economy, and for understanding how organizational capabilities are accumulated, transferred and applied . Organizational routines are units of analysis that capture change on a microlevel, and then allow us to 'zoom in' and make change, and its driving forces, more visible to the eye of the researcher. For an aspect of organizational behavior to emerge and persist as a 'routine', there must be a certain amount of stability to the conditions molding behavior: broad policies set by management, the conditions under which the particular routine in question is viewed as consistent with organizational goals and policies, explicit or implicit agreements among the various agents involved to do their parts of the actions needed to sustain the routine, etc. But many organizational routines are periodically, or even almost always, in flux. Indeed, a central proposition of routine theory is that organizations change what they are doing and how they are doing it by changing their routines. The change of routines may come at the instigation of management. Or the changes may come largely from forces and actions of agents internal to the routine. Some routines change faster and more drastically than others. For example, in many industries the capability of firms to compete depends on their ability to keep on introducing new products, or improving their processes of manufacture, or both, and such innovating requires continuing change in a range of the routines used in a firm. On
The development of high technology clusters is not a deterministic process, but one that is affec... more The development of high technology clusters is not a deterministic process, but one that is affected by the different dynamics of any attempts (intentional or otherwise) to coordinate activity and build a shared knowledge. This paper provides an illustration of these dynamics through the history of Sophia Antipolis, which has evolved from satellite platform to technopolis and from geographical proximity to organized proximity. Telecom Valley, a professional association of the actors of the telecommunication sector, and the Knowledge Management Platform, a project the association has initiated, have played a crucial role in this process. They succeeded to reduce 'cognitive distance', reinforcing proximity and giving a sense to the codification process inside the cluster.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study business models (BMs) for smart meters (SMs) and ... more Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study business models (BMs) for smart meters (SMs) and discuss related issues in the French institutional context. Because SM introduce deregulation on both the demand and supply sides, the authors argue that they represent an opportunity to “unlock” the system by enabling feedback to consumers. The authors discuss the empirical findings from the TICELEC (Technologies de l’Information pour une Consommation Electrique – Information Technology for Sustainable Electricity Consumption Behaviors) project which is an experimental initiative to measure potential energy savings through the implementation of SM, and to test behavioral change. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical data are from the TICELEC project and refer to a municipality in southern France. The project was designed to show the qualitative changes deriving from a new technology, and the quantitative changes in the form of real reductions in residential electricity consumption...
Despite recent calls for processual analysis of routines creation, little work has been done to i... more Despite recent calls for processual analysis of routines creation, little work has been done to investigate the entrepreneurial mechanisms that explain the creation and adoption of new routines. This paper provides a processual contribution to the study of organizational routines by proposing a model for routine creation, based on an analysis of collective entrepreneurial actions. Using an entrepreneurial bricolage lens, we show how agents, during the creation of new routines, develop mechanisms to adapt firm processes, enact external constraints and validate novel practices. Our analysis is based on a three-year collaborative study in a French biotechnology firm. We develop a processual model of routine creation comprising three phases: scanning, performing and adopting. The model provides new insights into the interplay between artefacts and entrepreneurial actions in the creation of new routines.
This article introduces this special issue on routines. It offers some suggestions as to why the ... more This article introduces this special issue on routines. It offers some suggestions as to why the concept of routines is considered central in methodological considerations of capabilities and organizational evolution. The contributors to this special issue propose various analytical tools, and provide some missing pieces from the puzzle related to the prominent role of routines. Issues discussed in the papers include methodological individualism. Routines lie between the individual and the firm levels of analysis because they are enacted by individuals in a social context. It is also suggested that a multilevel research agenda provides a finer grained analysis because organizational routines are not isolated units but are entangled among the various organizational layers.
The purpose of our contribution is to analyse the notion of routine as it is developed in recen... more The purpose of our contribution is to analyse the notion of routine as it is developed in recent economic literature in the light of two past economists, Joseph Schumpeter and Ludwig von Mises. We will focus on one peculiar feature put forward by the two Austrian economists, namely, on the distinction between adaptive / routine-minded behaviour on one side, and active / creative behaviour on the other. According to us, this feature is worth emphasizing since it permits to shed some new light on the long disputed Nelson and Winter's conception of routines. Our conjecture is that if Nelson and Winter had taken up the aforementioned distinction, they would have developed a richer view of economic behaviour and of its interweaving with in the firm or the social environment.
* Nous souhaitons remercier très vivement les auteurs qui ont bien voulu accepter de participer à... more * Nous souhaitons remercier très vivement les auteurs qui ont bien voulu accepter de participer à ce numéro. Notre reconnaissance va aussi aux rapporteurs des articles qui suivent et, plus particulièrement, à Nathalie Sigot qui, par son soutien, ses critiques et ses suggestions, a permis que l'entreprise soit menée jusqu'à son terme.
RESUME : Cet article porte sur une expérience de capitalisation des connaissances, avec productio... more RESUME : Cet article porte sur une expérience de capitalisation des connaissances, avec production d'un système à base de connaissances. Il s'agit du projet SACHEM qui porte sur le savoir-faire détenu par les personnes qui pilotent de manière experte la marche des hauts-fourneaux. L'unification et l'explicitation du savoir-faire, conservé jusqu'ici dans une certaine partie de la main d'œuvre, et la
* Nous souhaitons remercier très vivement les auteurs qui ont bien voulu accepter de participer à... more * Nous souhaitons remercier très vivement les auteurs qui ont bien voulu accepter de participer à ce numéro. Notre reconnaissance va aussi aux rapporteurs des articles qui suivent et, plus particulièrement, à Nathalie Sigot qui, par son soutien, ses critiques et ses suggestions, a permis que l'entreprise soit menée jusqu'à son terme.
The aim of this article is to understand permanence and changes inside organizational routines. F... more The aim of this article is to understand permanence and changes inside organizational routines. For this purpose, it seems important to explain how individual and collective memorisation occurs, so as to grasp how knowledge can be converted into routines. Although memorisation mechanisms imply a degree of durability, our procedural and declarative knowledge, and our memorisation processes, evolve so that individuals and organisations can project themselves into the future and innovate. Some authors highlight the necessity of dreaming and forgetting (Bergson 1896); others believe that emotions play a role in our memorisation processes (Damasio 1994). These dimensions are not only important at the individual level but also in an organisational context (Lazaric and Denis 2005; Reynaud 2005; Pentland and Feldman 2005).I review the individual dimension of these memorisation processes, with the Anderson’s distinction between procedural knowledge and declarative knowledge. I discuss the no...
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