Information and Organizations
Organizational Routines as a Source of Continuous Change
Organization Science
Interorganizational Routines and Performance in Strategic Alliances
Organization Science
Emotion as a Connection of Physical Artifacts and Organizations
Organization Science
Managing the unexpected: resilient performance in an age of uncertainty, second edition
Managing the unexpected: resilient performance in an age of uncertainty, second edition
Designing routines: On the folly of designing artifacts, while hoping for patterns of action
Information and Organization
Organizational Character: On the Regeneration of Camp Poplar Grove
Organization Science
When Truces Collapse: A Longitudinal Study of Price-Adjustment Routines
Organization Science
Practice as the Site of Knowing: Insights from the Field of Telemedicine
Organization Science
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This study examines how participants in routines view and balance pressures for consistency in the face of ongoing change. We address this question through a qualitative case-based inquiry into the ostensive aspects of the core operational routine in six waste management organizations. We find that organizational members simultaneously establish and maintain two ostensive patterns—one of targeted consistency and another of flexibility in internal coordination—by leveraging artifacts and connections. Organizations, however, could not establish similar patterns among their customers, who, lacking connections with other routine participants, expected consistency and performed their part less flexibly. These observations lead us to develop a theoretical model that identifies the processes through which simultaneous ostensive patterns of consistency and flexibility are established and sustained among organizational members, as well as the challenges that arise from multiplicity of ostensive patterns among routine participants with different roles and connections. The model advances the dynamic perspective on routines by articulating how artifacts and connections support the balancing of pressures for consistency and for change in routine functioning.