Handbook of Organizational Routines

Book excerpt: The idea of routines has been one of the most productive in organization studies. Finally we have a broad, deep, and authoritative survey of the exciting research it has inspired. Paul S. Adler, University of Southern California, US This cutting-edge, multidisciplinary Handbook comprises specially commissioned contributions surveying state-of-the-art research on the concept of organizational routines. An authoritative overview of the concept of organizational routines and its contributions to our understanding of organizations is presented. To identify those contributions, the role of organizational routines in such processes as organizational learning, performance feedback, and organizational memory is discussed. To identify how the concept can contribute to different disciplinary fields, the expert authors review applications across a range of fields including political science, sociology, and accounting. Two chapters on research methods provide expert advice on the endeavour of experimental studies and empirical field studies of organizational routines. Overall, this Handbook contains articles that identify the role of organizational routines in processes underlying the stability and change of organizations, show how the concept has been applied in different disciplinary fields, and discuss methods for carrying out empirical research using the organizational routines concept. Because of the importance issues such as the stability and change of organizations have in organization theory and strategy, this Handbook will appeal to scholars and students in business and management, in particular in organization theory, organization behaviour, and strategic management.