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.

All methods individually are flawed, but these limitations can be mitigated through mixed methods research, which combines methodologies to provide better answers to our research questions. In this study, we develop a research design framework for mixed methods work that is based on the principles of triangulation. Core elements for the research design framework include theoretical purpose, i.e., theory development and/or theory testing; and methodological purpose, i.e., prioritizing generalizability, precision in control and measurement, and authenticity of context. From this foundation, we consider how the multiple methodologies are linked together to accomplish the theoretical purpose, focusing on three types of linking processes: convergent triangulation, holistic triangulation, and convergent and holistic triangulation. We then consider the implications of these linking processes for the theory at hand, taking into account the following theoretical attributes: generality/specificity, simplicity/complexity, and accuracy/inaccuracy. Based on this research design framework, we develop a roadmap that can serve as a design guide for organizational scholars conducting mixed methods research studies.

Industry descriptions often depict science-driven industries as a single industry class, dominated by explicit knowledge in the form of patents, blueprints, diagrams, etc. This onedimensional view limits our ability to effectively manage the activities and routines across various stages of a science life cycle. The life cycle concept refers to the extent of development of the underlying scientific knowledge base. The knowledge in developed science fields (e.g. chemicals) is well codified, whereas in developing fields (e.g. biotechnology), it is less so. This variance creates interesting implications for innovation ± product development routines will differ across developed and developing sciences. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the knowledge-and resource-based requirements of developed and developing science industries and the link to competitive advantage.

doi 10.1287/orsc.1090.048

This study examines how the performance experience of actors shapes the stability and variability of routine performances. We argue that experience in performing a routine provides actors with greater understandings of the routine and its context, which provides an overall stabilizing effect on routine performances, but experience also heightens actors' capacity to adjust performances in response to changes in contextual constraints. Our analyses of routine performances in the waste collection sector are generally consistent with the arguments. Our findings also highlight differences in how actors' experience affects responsiveness to different forms of change in contextual constraints. These findings help to extend our understanding of the micro-foundations of routines. processes (i.e., dynamic routines) that support adaptation, it has given little explicit attention to the role that individuals within the routine may play in adapting routines to changes in the context.More recently, scholars have focused on the agency of actors within routines. This research explores how the internal properties of routines contribute to their stability and variability, and describes routines as 'generative systems' in reference to the internal components and mechanisms that enable routines to generate a variety of performances (Feldman and Pentland, 2008, p. 302). These performances refer to the sequences of actions that are carried out by actors engaged in the routine, and research suggests that these sequences are never identical (Cohen, 2007;Pentland et al., 2011;Salvato, 2009). The concept of performance experience plays a central role in this generative model of routines. Performance experience contributes to stability through processes that form and maintain actors' understandings of the routine, and to variability through modification processes involving endogenous change that reshape how actors understand the routine (Feldman and Pentland, 2003;Rerup and Feldman, 2011). While this research has extended our understanding of the agency of actors in routines, it has focused primarily on processes of endogenous change, and gives less consideration to how actors may influence responses to changes in context.The purpose of this study, then, is to help advance our understanding of routines by considering both the challenges of responding to contextual changes, as emphasized in traditional routines scholarship, and the agency of individual actors, as emphasized in recent research on routines. This aim is consistent with Cohen's (2007) call for developing more systematic understanding of routines as patterns of actions that reflect stability and variability amid changes in the environment surrounding them. Our research highlights that the individual actors performing the routine can themselves play a central role in shaping these patterns of action. In particular, this study helps to extend the routines literature by considering how the performance experience of actors may influence responsiveness to contextual changes.Differing...

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This study examines how designing for product development influences project performance in distinct technological environments. Drawing on a series of computational experiments and paired-case comparisons of six product development projects, we specifically examine how new product development performance is affected by project design and the technological environment. By triangulating across the computational experiments and case studies, we find the existence of performance trade-offs in product development as well as the importance of performance priorities in influencing project design. These findings permit us to elaborate on existing contingency-based perspectives of new product development and put forward a novel mediating model. In this mediating model of product development, we suggest that the technological environment shapes performance priorities, which in turn influence project design and ultimately the performance outcomes of new product development efforts. This model further highlights that project designs can evolve as a function of performance outcomes, although this process can be inhibited by the presence of design evolution constraints. This research contributes significantly to our understanding of designing projects for new product development.

Using a novel, mixed-methods research design, we examine how understanding-based redesign of a routine influences its effectiveness. By understanding-based redesign, we refer to an intentional change in routine design such that it aligns more closely with the understandings of participants regarding how to perform their roles in the routine. We argue that this type of redesign improves the effectiveness of a routine by facilitating the actions and interactions of routine participants. Our empirical examination focused on manipulating the procedure and physical artifacts available for performing the towel-changing routine at a hotel. Through a field experiment, we found that understanding-based redesign results in greater effectiveness of the routine, and based on a qualitative, interviews-based inquiry with key participants in the routine, we propose six processes by which understanding-based redesign influences participant actions that support routine effectiveness. Our study offers important implications for strategy and organizations research on routines, as well as useful implications for management practice.