RUMINATIONS ON PROCESS
Raghu Garud
Pennsylvania State University
August 2011
Process vs. Variance
• Longitudinal -- driven by questions about
"how phenomena emerge”
• Not efficient causality but generative causality
Innovation Processes are Complex
• Multiple people artifacts and metrics –
manifest complexity.
• Ecology of interactions between these
heterogeneous elements – relational
complexity.
• Full of ups and downs, false starts and dead
ends, “backing & forthing” – temporal
complexity.
Consequentially
Ambiguity is generated endogenously and is
manifest in:
– blurred boundaries
– shifting loci of action
– emerging preferences
– multiple & conflicting cues
And
Practitioners have to commit to a course of
action despite and even because of the
ambiguity.
From: Garud R. and Van de Ven A. H. 1992. "An empirical evaluation of the internal corporate venturing process" Strategic
Management Journal, Vol. 13, 93-109.
How Address Boundary Problem?
• One approach is to let field members
inform us about emerging boundaries.
• In my case, I attended conferences on
cochlear implants where actor
networks constituted and
re-constituted the emerging fields
through their entanglements.
These and other studies and others
have led to insight on
Innovation as:
– Complex adaptive processes
– Complex responsive processes
– Complex becoming processes
Complex Adaptive Processes
• Metaphors from an evolutionary perspective
include -- search, landscape, selection
environments, structural holes etc.
• Context is largely exogenous.
• Theorizing includes -- path dependence,
absorptive capacity, punctuated equilibrium,
two-stage dominant design, exaptation.
• Implications for process research – follow and
study shifts in landscapes over time.
An Example
This figure shows the transition from one sociotechnical regime to another as a consequence of
exogenous niche innovations and landscape changes, as depicted by Geels & Schot (2007).
Complex Responsive Processes
• Metaphors from a relational perspective include - interpretive flexibility, co-creation, translation.
• Context is endogenized to yield a flat ontology
(actor-network) that considers entanglements
between social and material elements.
• Theorizing includes -- path constitution, bricolage
• Implications for process research – follow and
study entanglements over time.
An Example
This figure shows the emergence and transformation of the bicycle through the constitutive
entanglement of the social and the material as depicted by Pinch & Bijker (1987).
Complex Becoming Processes
• Metaphors from an intertemporal perspective
include – distentio, diachrony, chronos &
kairos, anticipation and recollection.
• Time is endogenized to yield a Mobius strip of
unfolding experiences.
• Theorizing includes -- transformative capacity,
improvisation, path creation.
• Implications for process research – follow &
study temporal agency.
An example
This figure is a temporally emplotted diagram of the research in the human genome
project. The figure appeared in Mane and Börner (2004).
Summary of Complexity Perspectives
Adapted from:
Garud, R., Gehman, J. and Kumaraswamy. A. (2011) Complexity Arrangements for Sustaining Innovation: Lessons from 3M
Corporation. Organization Studies 32(6) 737–767.
Garud, R. and Gehman, J. (2011) “Metatheoretical perspectives on sustainability journeys: Evolutionary, relational and
intertemporal.” Research Policy (forthcoming).
Conclusion
• We first have to clarify what we mean by process
to conduct meaningful process research.
• It is both a matter of personal choice and social
acceptance as to what kind of process research
we conduct.
• As we endogenize context, text and sub-text,
process research becomes all the more
challenging, but at the same time more
rewarding.