Applying Organizational Routines in Analyzing Organizations: Methodological Issues and Analytical Contributions

The concept of organizational routines was introduced to help understand organizational behavior and organizational change (Nelson & Winter, 1982; March & Simon, 1958; Cyert & March, 1963). Previous studies that have applied organizational routines as analytical perspective to understand these issues, however, have shown the task is not trivial. Many seem sceptical of the contribution an analysis employing organizational routines can make. While much has been written on organizational routines, empirical research employing organizational routines as analytical perspective is still at a relatively early stage. Accordingly, methodological questions still create stumbling blocks in applying the concept of organizational routines. We are convinced such problems are directly responsible for the limited analytical potential of organizational routines that has been realized so far. The objective of this article is to advance and strengthen organizational routines as analytical perspective for understanding organizational behavior and organizational change. In order to do so, the article tackles two questions: (1) How to apply organizational routines as analytical perspective so they make a contribution to understanding organizational behavior? (2) What is the contribution that organizational routines as analytical perspective can make to explaining organizational behavior and organizational change? We develop answers to these two questions by applying organizational routines as analytical perspective in analyzing the product development process at an engineering center.