Raghu Garud & Peter Karnøe

PATH CREATIONA PROCESS OF MINDFUL DEVIATION

PATH CREATIONA PROCESS OF MINDFUL DEVIATION

A set of ideas to think about the role of human agency in entrepreneurship and change

PATH CREATION AS A PROCESS OF MINDFUL DEVIATION

PATH CREATION AS A PROCESS OF MINDFUL DEVIATION

The living language is like a cowpath: it is the creation of the cows themselves, who, having created it, follow it or depart from it, or depart from it according to their whims or their needs. From daily use, the path undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay in the narrow path she helped make, following the contour of the land, but she often profits by staying with it and she would be handicapped if she didn't know where it was or where it led to.

E. B. White, 1957

PATH DEPENDENCEPATH DEPENDENCE

A sequence of events constituting a self-reinforcing process that has the potential to unfold into one of several potential states based upon small differences in any of the events constituting the sequence. (Lock-in - QWERTY)

Implication:

Markets are not efficient due to re-inforcement (‘best’ wins out)

-dynamic learning effects- economies of scale –coordination effects – expectations dominance – critical mass -

- first mover Beta max VHS, DK wind

MORE FORMALLY MORE FORMALLY

A path dependent sequence of economic changes is one of which important influences upon the eventual outcome can be exerted by temporally remote events, including happenings dominated by chance elements rather than systematic forces. Stochastic processes like that do not converge automatically to a fixed point distribution of outcomes, and are called non-ergodic. In such circumstances, "historical accidents" can neither be ignored nor reality quarantined for the purpose of economic analysis; the dynamic process itself takes on an essentially historical character.

David, 1985: 332

The Path dependence

‘outsider’ perspective

makes the emergence of

novelty a black box and there is no role to human agency

-

The Path dependence

‘outsider’ perspective

makes the emergence of

novelty a black box and there is no role to human agency

-

Path creation entertains an ‘insider’

perspective

– and tend to theorize emergent paths and actors and how their possible actions are

constrained-and-enabled from the path

where they are embedded – and

resources they can mobilize

Path dependence and Path creation as different perspectives

The Path dependence ‘outsider’

perspective

- Tends to underscore the constitutive character of

paths and the way different part of the history become re-assembled to make new

futuresHistory or the past become

often too homogenous a force

The Path dependence ‘outsider’

perspective

- Tends to underscore the constitutive character of

paths and the way different part of the history become re-assembled to make new

futuresHistory or the past become

often too homogenous a force

Path creation entertains an ‘insider’

perspective

– the micro-sociological perspective combined with emergent irreverbilization

(lock-ins) highligths the active constitution of the ‘lock-in’ by contributing actors, materials and economic and symbolic

resources

Path dependence and Path creation as different perspectives

Everything emerges out of an essentially historical dynamic

processof contingent

ordering, irreversibilization,

momentum and possible lock-in

Everything emerges out of an essentially historical dynamic

processof contingent

ordering, irreversibilization,

momentum and possible lock-in

Path dependence and Path creation do share ideas of

On what level does one see lock-in?

Wind power as Path Creation and

Transformative changes in energy

production

Any technology or organization in the present build upon

various fragments of solutions from ‘old’

history

On what level does one see lock-in?

Wind power as Path Creation and

Transformative changes in energy

production

Any technology or organization in the present build upon

various fragments of solutions from ‘old’

history

BUT

PATH DEPENDENCE OR CREATION as a choice of ontology and epistemology (Garud

and Karnøe 2001:7-8)

PATH DEPENDENCE OR CREATION as a choice of ontology and epistemology (Garud

and Karnøe 2001:7-8)

• A shift from path dependence to creation occurs as researchers theorize how embedded actors endogenize objects, relevance structures and time (history as experienced past, present, future) – irreversibility as outcome

• As embedding dimensions become strategic variables, there is a shift from "describing our past worlds" to "shaping our current states" to create new futures.

• Entrepreneurship involves judgment and choice about time, relevance structures and objects within which entrepreneurs are embedded and from which they must deviate mindfully to create new paths.

PATH CREATIONPATH CREATION

Entrepreneurship requires an ability to span boundaries of relevance structures, translate objects and mobilize time as a resource.

As entrepreneurs endogenize time, relevance structures and objects, they generate power to manipulate and mobilize these elements strategically.

Path creation is the binding of objects, relevance structures and time into an overall co-evolutionary process.