Organizational self-reinforcing loops emerge from institutional context, not individual choice alone.

Evidence

A related problem of the technological path dependence studies results from their focus on individual decision making. This exclusive focus on individuals does not account for the institutional setting in which organizational positive feedback processes happen to occur. It is the broader organizational context (e.g., hidden assumptions of the organization, organizational culture, status and role system, and institutionalized practices) that informs decision makers and provides the basis, indirectly and inadvertently, for the development of self-reinforcing loops. — Jörg Sydow, Georg Schreyögg, and Jochen Koch, Organizational Path Dependence, 43

Categorization

• DEFINE: Specifies what ‘organizational context’ concretely means: hidden assumptions, culture, status and role system, institutionalized practices.