Self-Reinforcing Processes in and among Organizations

摘要

The volume edited by Sydow and Schreyoegg, Self-Reinforcing Processes in and among Organizations, provides an articulate and thoughtful account of inter- and intra-organizational dynamics sustained by self-reinforcing loops. The analysis of self-reinforcing processes in the organizational field has a long tradition and deep epistemological roots. On the one hand, we can refer to the stream of research on system dynamics, initiated in the 1960s at MIT, that developed a number of models to describe and analyse organizational processes as feedback loops (Forrester, 1968; Sastry, 1998; Sterman, 2000). On the other hand, there is a parallel effort to represent organizations as patterns of interactions and multiple causal loops (Weick, 1979; Masuch, 1985; Garud & Kumaraswamy, 2005). In particular, Weick (1979, chapter 3) grounds his theory of organizing on the idea of self-reinforcing mechanisms.