Path processes at different levels mutually reinforce each other catalytically

Evidence

Future research should account more explicitly for these different levels and their interplay, which may well amount to “cross-catalytic feedback” (Paul David, personal communication) between not only these levels but also organizational and technological path processes. Beyond this, we are convinced that more rigorous research on organizational paths can enrich organization science significantly, as well as our understanding of puzzling rigidities in organizational life. — Jörg Sydow, Georg Schreyögg, and Jochen Koch, Organizational Path Dependence, 127

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘cross-catalytic feedback’ as a compact term for mutually reinforcing path processes across organizational, network, field, and technological levels — a reusable coinage.
• QUESTION: If the metaphor is catalytic, what plays the role of the catalyst that isn’t itself consumed by the reaction? Unclear whether the levels act as catalysts or reactants.
• STORYSTEM: A fictional research institute or guild where discoveries at the lab level and institutional level feed each other into irreversible lock-in — a story about a place that becomes structurally unable to change.
• XREF: connects to: Path dependence plus recurrent mechanisms jointly explain contention’s regularities. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 366