Standard criteria for path dependence describe only stages of a process, not the whole

Evidence

These four properties provide a first orientation for differentiating between path-dependent and non-path-dependent processes. However, the properties seem to be somewhat overgeneralized, and they do not actually apply to the whole process of becoming locked into a path. Rather, they appear to cover specific episodes in this process. Take, for instance, unpredictability; this trait applies only to the beginning of the process, when the outcome is actually unpre- dictable. — Jörg Sydow, Georg Schreyögg, and Jochen Koch, Organizational Path Dependence, 21

Categorization

• DEFINE: The four classic properties of path dependence — unpredictability, nonergodicity, inflexibility, inefficiency — are recharacterized as episode-specific rather than process-wide traits.
• SEED: Article angle: ‘The Checklist Was Never a Definition’ — how social-science concepts get defined by their late-stage symptoms rather than their mechanism.