How Understanding-Based Redesign Influences the Pattern of Actions and Effectiveness of Routines

Abstract

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.

Turbocharging Practical Implications in Management Studies

“…• Our study offers several managerial implications for firms in the hotel industry, as well as for large chain organizations more generally (Bapuji, Hora, Saeed, & Turner, 2019) • 75% of U. • Women's business ownership is important for societal growth .…”

Reflection-in-Action When Designing Organizational Processes: Prototyping Workshops for Collective Reflection-in-Action

“…Recent examples of work highlighting this internal experimentation of routines can be found in Turner and Rindova (2012), D'Adderio (2014), and Rerup and Feldman (2011). These studies show that a challenge of routine design is that when the routine changes, people need to adapt their understandings of the routine (Bapuji et al, 2018), their role (Dionysiou and Tsoukas, 2013), the practices they use (Pentland and Feldman, 2008), and their underlying beliefs (Cohen, 2007) in light of the changing organizational context (Dionysiou and Tsoukas, 2013) and the routine (Bucher and Langley, 2016). These issues require that part of designing a routine is enactment (Bucher and Langley, 2016;Simpson and Lorino, 2016) of the new routine through experimentation.…”

“…This work highlighted the dynamic nature of routine design, as artefacts, members of the organizations, theories underlying their choices and the specific actions available interacted with each other. Bapuji et al (2018) have studied the redesign of a towel change routine in a hotel. Their work focused on how bringing in the understanding of the stakeholders involved (e.g., maid's changing the towels) can be beneficial when redesigning a routine.…”

Dynamic Capabilities? Unleashing Their Dynamics through a Practice Perspective on Organizational Routines

“…For example, in Feldman's (2000) study, none of the examined organizational routines that were subject to deliberate change interventions changed as planned. However, at the same time, the very performance of organizational routines in their situational context also enables deliberate interventions, given that manipulations of this context may disrupt routine performance and spur reflection and experimentation (Bapuji et al, 2019;den Nieuwenboer et al, 2017;Glaser, 2017). For example, Bucher and Langley (2016) showed how leaders of surgical clinics provided clinical staff with "reflective" and "experimental spaces," which enabled these actors to detach from performing an established organizational routine, envision a new organizational routine, and experiment with the new organizational routine in order to arrive at a workable pattern of action.…”