Introduction: Routine Dynamics in Action

Organizational routines are fundamental building blocks of organizations and organizing (Cyert & March, 1963; Feldman & Pentland, 2003; March & Simon, 1958; Nelson & Winter, 1982). Commonly defined as repetitive, recognizable patterns of interdependent actions (Feldman & Pentland, 2003, p. 95), routines underpin everyday work in organizations, such as hiring and training (Feldman, 2000) or producing goods and services (Kremser & Schreyögg, 2016; Lazaric & Denis, 2005). Recent empirical research shows how the dynamics of routines contribute to organizational stability and change (e.g., Danner-Schröder & Geiger, 2016; Feldman, 2000; Pentland & Rueter, 1994; Turner & Rindova, 2012), to how organizational members solve organizational problems (e.g., Feldman, 2003; Rerup & Feldman, 2011), and to the processes of organizational replication (D’Adderio, 2014, 2017) and innovation (e.g., Sele & Grand, 2016; Sonenshein, 2016). Through these empirical studies the field of routine dynamics has emerged as a useful lens to analyze and explain themes and phenomena that researchers and practitioners alike care about (Feldman, Pentland, D’Adderio, & Lazaric, 2016; Parmigiani & Howard-Grenville, 2011). Routine dynamics offers methodological sensitivities (e.g., a focus on actions) and theoretical tools (e.g., practice theory) that prove useful in exploring a wide range of organizational phenomena. The papers in this volume build on this tradition and show how routine dynamics can illuminate areas such as strategy (Grand & Bartel, this volume), entrepreneurship (Schmidt, Braun, & Sydow, this volume), human resources (van Mierlo, Bondarouk, & Loohuis, this volume), health care (Kho, Spee, & Gillespie, this volume; Kiwan & Lazaric, this volume), social policy (Eberhard, Frost, & Rerup, this volume), and the arts (Blanche & Cohendet, this volume).