Creating Routines for Innovation: Insights from an organisational experiment

Abstract

While organisational routines and innovation may seem to be antithetical, there is a long association in the literature between them, exploring both the routinisation of innovation activities, and innovation in routines themselves. However, progress has been somewhat sidetracked by disputes over the definition and purpose of routines, to the neglect of understanding where they come from and how they develop. Moreover, there are few empirical examples that explicitly attempt to trace the formation and development of organisational routines. This paper outlines evidence from a year-long ethnographic study of a recently formed company that was established to implement small-scale innovation projects. It offered a natural experiment through which attempts to establish new routines for innovation could be observed. To help structure these observations, the paper revisits the original distinction between the cognitive, motivational, and normative dimensions of routines made by Nelson and Winter (1982) and explores the dynamics between them.