Imprinting posits a pre-formed pattern while path dependence emerges from the process itself.

Evidence

First, the replicated pattern in the imprinting approach is ready-made at the beginning; it is a specific scheme that persists and continues to influence future processes. In contrast, the gestalt of an organizational path is not clear at all in the early stage; it is an unforeseeable product of later processes, which are initially unknown. Path dependence is an offspring of the nature of the process. — Jörg Sydow, Georg Schreyögg, and Jochen Koch, Organizational Path Dependence, 58

Categorization

• DEFINE: Draws the decisive conceptual line between imprinting and path dependence: pre-made pattern versus process-generated gestalt.
• XREF: Connects to evolutionary and developmental debates about preformation versus epigenesis, and to complexity accounts of emergence.