Trial-and-error Learning and Embeddedness of Organizational Routines

Between-Case Analysis of Extracurricular Activities in a Japanese High School

Abstract

Drawing on the generative model of organizational routines, this paper re-examines organizational learning as selecting and replacing organizational routines in the organizational warp and woof. Organizational routines are the source of endogenous change in organizations, and organizations can create a routine which allows to coexist diverse, sometimes competing, activities intertwining intricately with human and non-human actors. The embedded formal routines and rules in socio-technical agencements frame organizational activities, and their overflowing of performances in practice can cause reframing further activities. Through multi organizational fieldwork of extracurricular activities in a Japanese high school, this paper plots the relationship between the embeddedness of organizational routines and trial-and-error learning in the process of routinization. This Between-Case Analysis identifies (1) the strength of the embeddedness in organizational members and artifacts differentiates the performativity of formal routines and rules in practice, (2) the modes of embeddedness affect trial-and-error learning originated by managers’/coaches’ corrections and warnings, (3) managers/coaches have the role of embedding organizational routines into human or non-human actors through rule-making, rule-giving, and connecting those actors with each other. These findings suggest that it could develop richer managerial implications on organizational learning and knowledge transfer by analyzing management practices to approach them from the perspective of routinization.