Routines as drivers of adaptation, incremental change and transformation

Prior research has emphasized the importance of higher-order routines or metaroutines for an organization’s ability to innovate. In this paper, we explore why and how routines can interact in different ways and potentially create transformational outcomes. By observing the interactions of specific customer data-related routines over a long period of time, we relate the change potential to the routines’ internal dynamics and identify three different mechanisms for change. Transformation requires a direct disruption of the ostensive aspect of a routine, which may result from one or a combination of these three identified extremes. Our results advance the understanding of the relationship between organizational routines and transformation, suggesting that approaching routine interaction from a routine dynamics perspective may help resolve the paradox between doing a routine task and performing routines to generate disruptive novelty.