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The Micropolitics of Routines and Routine “Improvement”

Geneviève Desbiens (HEC Montréal, Canada)

Ann Langley (HEC Montréal, Canada; and University of Warwick, UK)

Routine Dynamics: Organizing in a World in Flux

ISBN: 978-1-83549-553-7, eISBN: 978-1-83549-552-0

Publication date: 22 July 2024

Abstract

Previous research on routine dynamics has most commonly incorporated consideration of power, politics, and conflict by using the notion of “truce.” In this paper, the authors propose a novel approach to integrating theories of power and politics with those of routine dynamics, and illustrate it by drawing on an in-depth study of operating room routines in a general hospital. The authors show how the dynamic interaction among groups’ sources of power, interests, and strategies is linked to the performance and patterning of routines. The approach opens up the originally rather static notion of “truce” to an inherently more dynamic and processual view of the micropolitics underpinning routines. The authors contribute to the routine dynamics literature by showing how and why the micropolitical context may influence, undermine, or reproduce the patterning and performing of organizational routines following a change initiative, and more broadly by illustrating an approach to integrating political considerations into the theory of routine dynamics.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

We thank Sylvain Landry and Linda Rouleau from HEC Montréal for their advice in developing the research presented in this paper. We are also grateful to our informants at the hospital studied for their participation. We thank the editors and reviewers of this paper for their developmental comments that helped us improve it.

Citation

Desbiens, G. and Langley, A. (2024), "The Micropolitics of Routines and Routine “Improvement”", Mahringer, C.A., Pentland, B.T., Renzl, B., Sele, K. and Spee, P. (Ed.) Routine Dynamics: Organizing in a World in Flux (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 88), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 83-109. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20240000088005

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited