Organization-level path dependence is triggered by intentional strategic moves, not random small events

Evidence

It is doubtless appealing to conceive of triggers of path dependence as small and random events, but for the purpose of organizational analysis, we need to expand the scope. Since organizations are social systems and not markets or natural entities, triggering events in organizations are likely to prove to be not so innocent, random, or “small” (cf. also Bassanini & Dosi, 2001). For instance, in the case of the VHS monopoly that has been intensively studied from a path dependence perspective (Cusumano, Mylonadis, & Rosenbloom, 1992), the triggering event was neither a random nor a small one. — Jörg Sydow, Georg Schreyögg, and Jochen Koch, Organizational Path Dependence, 35

Categorization

• XREF: Directly challenges the Arthur/David complexity-theory framing of small random events that appears in the preceding paragraph. — connects to: Path dependence plus recurrent mechanisms jointly explain contention’s regularities. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 366; Alliances with developed organizations survive threats long after they vanish — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 153
• SEED: Angle: ‘The myth of the small event’ — why origin stories of dominant standards (VHS over Beta) get retold as accidents when they were deliberate strategy.