The Dynamic Power of Routines in Stability and Change in South East Europe SMEs Organizations

Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction

2.0 Literature review
2.1 The role of feedback in the stability or change of routines
2.2 The role of formal routines in innovation
2.3 The role of routines in organizational performance

3.0 Research Problem and Query
3.1 Research objectives

4.0 Methodology
4.1 Sampling
4.2 Data analysis
4.3 Considering ethical issues during the project

5.0 Time Table of Dissertation plan

6.0 References

7.0 Appendix

1.0 Introduction

Exploring organizational routines in stability and change within organizations is considered to be a new research topic related to South Eastern Europe. Nowadays, organizations have to change (Pentland et al., 2011) in order to be able to cope with the new challenges that the region is facing and will face in the future too. Investigating the impact of routines within organizations and their impact in organizations stability and change in South Eastern Europe will be interesting and a new research that has not been done before in this region.

The research proposal will be an important part of the extensive research that will take place in South Eastern Europe that so far the particular topic has not been explored before. In addition, a profound literature review is presented for the particular research, following the methodology that will be used in order to collect data and to drive us to reach the research objectives will be purely qualitative approach (Creswell, 2003), which throughout interviews we will have a great opportunity to understand the impact of routines in SMEs in depth. Furthermore, the time schedule of the entire research is presented and explained in detail for every step that will be undertaken until the end of the entire dissertation.

2.0 Literature review

2.1 The role of feedback in the stability or change of routines

The role of feedback in organizations stability and change has been investigated by various authors in their research that came with the conclusion that routines cannot change because they are repetitive actions (Lukka, 2007). This argument was heavily been criticized by other authors like Farjoun (2010) and Lazaric (2011) by saying that organizational routines are set of rules that can be changed inside the workflow and managers should be responsible for taking that decision based on their experience and setting goals. If there is plenty of evidence that routines harm the workflow and preclude organizations to reach their targets this should be the starting point of altering routines within the workplace (Pentland et al., 2011). Therefore, it was mentioned by Howard-Grenwille (2011) in their research that feedback which derives from employees as well as other agents inside the organizations will prompt organizations to alter routines in order to create a flexible and smooth working process. In addition, through receiving feedback organizations can change the same manner of doing things which ultimately offers evidence that feedback is the main mechanism of creating stability within organizations (Klarner and Raisch, 2013). Therefore, feedback has a great influence in organizations success and failure. It was mentioned by Van der Bossche et al. (2010) that feedbacks drives organizations toward improving their outcomes as long as they create the flexibility and are eager to prompt employees to express freely their thoughts about routines. So, the main argument presented by the authors is that employees know better the entire working process inside the organizations, because they face daily with variety of tasks that should be done, and they could be the appropriate persons in evaluating something that may harm their job.

Another argument that was discussed in the literature is that through cooperation between management and employees it is the driven factor for changing routines and sustaining stability (Deyoe and Fox, 2011) which includes interaction and communication process. This process creates better interaction between upper management that is responsible for altering routines and urging employees to fulfill their orders. Moreover, Laamanen and Keil (2008) mentioned that employees’ feedback regarding to altering routines should be embraced by management, because they receive information from the people which have gathered experience throughout the working years and are able to evaluate what should be changed in their work for organizations betterment. But, some concerns were raised due to employees’ feedback in the literature. There is evidence that shows inside the organizations that even employees provide feedback about routines that they should be altered based on their observation, management most of the time are reluctant to embrace such initiatives (Rice, 2008). The same argument has been found in Pentland et al. (2011) research as well, by saying that the majority of organizations do not pay close attention to employees’ feedback, because the internal policies and decisions usually are made by management consultation without encompassing employees’ suggestions regarding to routines. Furthermore, some authors like Jernigan and Beggs (2010) they supported management view by claiming that management is in charge for controlling and altering routines, if feedback that derives from employees is appropriate with management objectives this is a signal that the cooperation between them is in high level, but in real circumstances the entire process should be based on organizations future orientation (Kaymaz, 2011).

2.2 The role of formal routines in innovation

The role of formal routines in innovation is considered the most difficult point to be defined and measured in the literature. Scholars in their research have found variety results regarding to formal routines in innovation. So, it was mentioned by Søren et al. (2010) that formal routines tend to preclude the entire process of innovation by setting formal rules that employees must follow properly. Likewise, Charterina and Landeta (2013) supported this view by saying that as long as organizations set formal routines and they oblige employees to follow those routines this will have negative consequences regarding to innovation, because employees will be urged to behave in the same way and a little room is left for thinking differently. Moreover, some authors hold an extreme view when it comes to routines and their impact to innovation, like Klarner and Raisch (2013) that in their research mentioned explicitly that formal routines and innovation cannot work with one another. They emphasize that routines have a negative impact in employees’ way of thinking by creating barriers in the workplace and making employees to be addicted from their task that should be done.

In the other side authors like Gurkov (2013) opposed this view by exemplifying with manufacturing examples in Russia. He found that in manufacturing process it is important to have some rules and procedures in order to guide employees about the job that should be done, so routines in this sector have been the cornerstone of creating stability and making incremental changes in products as well as processes. Continuing this argument Bresman (2013) presented a different view about routines and their impact upon innovation. He mentioned that managers are responsible for observing routines inside the work process, if they have enough argument that those routines are source of harming innovation additional steps should be undertaken by the upper management in order to prompt employees for generating new ideas. Moreover, this argument partially was supported by Rerup and Feldman (2011) which mentioned that organizations should observe routines in the entire process rather than innovation, because the process inside the organizations is interrelated and if routines are considered as source of blocking stages this will encompass innovation as well.

But, in the other hand some of the authors in their researchers claimed that innovation derives from formal routines as long as employees know their tasks and their duties, they will be able to master their job and proposing new ideas about what should be altered and how it should be altered (Damanpour and Aravind, 2011). Likewise, it was mentioned by Alves et al. (2011) that innovation will not be accomplished appropriately if organizations have not create some routines in order to canalize the entire process of generating new ideas and trying to implement those ideas in new projects. Furthermore, continuing this argument Marshall et al. (2010) mentioned that organizations create some departments purposefully for generating innovations which work purely by formal rules and procedures throughout entire process. Therefore, routines have a positive impact upon innovation, but organizations should balance this process between routines and innovation by creating the flexibility and freedom for employees to exploit their creativity by using different techniques (Asumeng, 2013).

2.3 The role of routines in organizational performance

The definition of routines and their impact in organizations stability and change, and moreover in innovation, drives us to jump to another crucial segment which encompasses and determines overall organizations success or failure which is performance. Performance is difficult to be defined, because from variety of fields we have different criteria how to evaluate and measure performance, for instance organizational performance in operation view is closely related with affectivity and efficiency (Drmevich, and Kriauciunas, 2011) or from marketing point of view performance includes two dimension: market performance as well as financial performance (Morgan, 2012), and another broad definition in compare with the above is that performance measures the progress that we made in accomplishing organizations goals which may include financial or non-financial goals which can encompass innovation, profitability as well as efficiency, improving market share and effectiveness (Krasniqi, 2009). Also, some authors (Kirkhaug, 2010 in their research claimed that routines are better when it comes to control the entire working process through repetitive actions, which provides a better coordination and interaction among employees that can improve organizations performance outcomes (Chen, and Yu, 2012). In this regard, Greta and Karahanna (2013) mentioned that routines impact performance most of the time from some main aspects, like: knowledge management and decision making process, innovation, coordination and costs.