Treating path dissolution as purely accidental leaves managers passive when action is needed

Evidence

With this perspective, however, path dissolution amounts to an accidental process, be it revolutionary or evolutionary, which—nobody knows—may or may not occur. Adopting this view clearly has a fatalistic or at least a passive flavor to it. We are condemned to wait, probably for a long time since we know such events are rare. The firm may go bankrupt long before a disrupting event occurs. An active and alert attitude thus seems imperative. — Jörg Sydow, Georg Schreyögg, and Jochen Koch, Organizational Path Dependence, 98

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle on why ‘wait for the disruption’ is a bankrupt strategy — the case for deliberately engineering your own path break.
• DEEPTHINKING: Frames the whole passive-versus-active stance toward structural lock-in; the tension between waiting for exogenous shock and actively destabilizing your own path is worth sitting with.