Institutional lock-in is a matter of degree, not absolute determinism.

Evidence

Considering institutional and organizational paths, the context seems to require a somewhat modified conception of lock-in. Due to its social character, institutional and organizational processes are more complex and ambiguous in nature. They are not likely to amount to a concrete monopolistic solution, which excludes any further choices. Rather, they are likely to bring about a specific action pattern which gets deeply embedded in practice and replicated across various situations. Fixed recursive patterns of action, however, cannot be equated with determinism, not forgetting the power of knowledgeable agents to act otherwise (Giddens, 1984). For these reasons, we should refrain from reifying paths and attributing them an objective quality. — Georg Schreyögg and Jörg Sydow, The Hidden Dynamics of Path Dependence, 52

Categorization

• DEFINE: Redefines ‘lock-in’ for social systems as deep embeddedness that still leaves scope for agential variation rather than total rigidity.