The concept of a routine

The significance of routines in modern, learning, innovating economies is widely appreciated. Routines are vital to all organizations. Hence it is important to understand both how they can be built and how they can be changed. Such an appreciation is important, for analysing how the business world works, for understanding how knowledge is retained and transferred, for the development of business strategy, and for the creation of policies to encourage more beneficial business practice.

Detailed empirical investigation is essential in this regard, but detailed taxonomic studies based on empirical evidence are relatively rare. One reason why empirical investigations have so far remained rather limited is that the conceptual specification of a routine remains hazy. Greater conceptual precision is a vital precondition of fruitful empirical enquiry.