Self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms are the causal core of organizational rigidity

Evidence

The second major element of an advanced path analysis is the identification, exploration, and reconstruction of the self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms possibly underlying the organizational rigidity in question. The identification or detection of one or more such mechanisms at work is a complex task that requires recognizing patterns in the broad flow of everyday practices. — Jörg Sydow, Georg Schreyögg, and Jochen Koch, Organizational Path Dependence, 115

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Positions self-reinforcing mechanisms, not inertia itself, as the load-bearing causal entity — reframing what an analyst must actually find.
• XREF: Echoes complexity/feedback thinking (Senge, Forrester) and self-reinforcing lock-in in economics. — connects to: Cybernetics describes feedback in all systems, not just machines — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2328