Do Organizational Routines Change as Experience Changes?

Abstract

This article addresses the question: How can one understand the dynamics involved in translating experience into organizational routines? In the pursuit of such understanding, the article examines two dynamic threats to the relationship between experience and routines. The results suggest that these threats interrelate with how multiple actors interact in an organizational context. This interrelation constitutes different learning processes. One type of learning is associated with heedful interaction—where organizational routines become a source of exploration and adaptiveness. The other type of learning is associated with heedless interaction—where routines become a source of exploitation, inertia, and carelessness. The data used in approaching the research question are from a longitudinal research project that illustrates how multiple actors in an organization generate and change routines in the face of changing experience.