On Habit and Organizing: A Transactional Perspective Relating Firms, Consumers, and Social Institutions

Moshe Farjoun () and Nudrat Mahmood ()
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Moshe Farjoun: Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada
Nudrat Mahmood: Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada

Organization Science, 2024, vol. 35, issue 3, 1157-1176

Abstract: Habits and routines are foundational to several organizational theories. Considering organizational members to be predominately employees, established habit-based models recognize how these members’ habits help build organizations and are shaped by them. Departing from this traditional, internal focus, our paper highlights an important aspect of organizing, which has been relatively overlooked by established habit-based models, namely, how firms engineer consumer habits to their advantage and, by extension, strategically shape the habits of other key resource providers. To better theorize consumer habits and their engineering, and to integrate these phenomena within extant organizational theory, we develop a new habit-based perspective relating firms, consumers, and social institutions. Inspired by Dewey’s transactional approach and drawing on modern habit science, our transactional framework helps illuminate habit engineering, promotes a richer and more integrated view of organizing, and opens new possibilities for habit-based organizational theories. Our paper also offers several implications for firms’ managers, individual consumers, and broader society.

Keywords: routines; habit engineering; shaping strategies; micro-foundations; digital platforms; competitive advantage; business models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:35:y:2024:i:3:p:1157-1176

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