How employee behaviors effect organizational change and stability

Researchers of organizational routines have begun to examine the "microfoundations" of routines, paying much closer attention to the role of individual participants in routines. These investigations have brought to light specific behaviors that introduce change or promote stability in routines, but because these behaviors are so specific to their context, it is difficult to find common threads between the papers. In this paper, we examine research focused on how employee behaviors bring about change and stability in routines and identify unifying characteristics. We find that, although the contexts of extant routines research vary wildly, employees in all of these settings enact "prescriber" or "performer" roles in the context of their focal routines and engage in proactive, adaptive, and proficient behaviors. By introducing a common language to describe employee behaviors in these various studies, we hope to build connections between them as a gateway to open new research opportunities.