History and persistence in organizations and institutions

Project info

Work package
  • Work
Sustainability threat
  • Spillovers
Challenge
  • Reconfiguring-roles-and-relationships
  • Reshaping organizational forms

Study info

Description of Study
Many scholars agree that “history matters” for organizations, but understanding why and how it matters proves to be a big undertaking. This theoretic paper zooms in on a specific way through which the past influences present-day organizations: how history forms patterns of persistence within organizations. We outline three key theories on history and persistence in organizations: path dependence, escalation of commitment, and imprinting. We synthesize the literature and review the theories on the agency of actors involved, the microfoundations, historical assumptions, and the role of the environment.
Study research question
How does history play a role in the persistence of organizational structures and practices?
Collection provenance
  • -
Collection methods
Personal data
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External Source
Source description
n.a., no data used
File formats
  • n.a., no data used
Data types
Languages
  • n.a., no data used
Coverage start
Coverage end
Spatial coverage
n.a., no data used
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Variables

Unit
Unit description
Sample size
Sampling method
Other
n.a., no data used
Hypothesis
Theory
n.a., no variables tested, following theories are discussed:
path dependence theory, escalation of commitment, imprinting theory, cohort effects, structural inertie
Variable type
Variable name
Variable description
Other
n.a., no data/variables used
Discipline-specific operationalizations
Conflict of interest

Data packages

Publications

Bringing the past back in –history and persistence in organizations and institutions

This study (a revised version) will be published in the Handbook of Historical Sociology

Documents

Filename
Description
Date

Ethics

Ethical assessment
Unknown
Ethical committee