GRK 1012:  (Understanding, Analysing and Steering Organisational Paths: Path Dependence, Path Breaking and Path Creation in an Integrated Approach Toward Management)

• Subject Area: Economics
• Term: from 2005 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 372679

The Research Training Group is designed to focus on path dependence, path breaking and path creation in organisational and inter-organisational processes. It builds on the theory of path dependence and its application to emergent organisational processes. The analysis of organisational paths represents an innovative approach for understanding both organisational and institutional change. Reform bottleneck and inertia are understood as the result of (invisible) path dependency and lock-ins. Beyond the diagnosis of organisational path dependence the Research Training Group intends to explore the possibilities of path breaking and de-locking. The latter means at the same time a new direction for path research highly significant from a managerial perspective. Further more, analysing and explaining the constitution and breaking of paths, also open one scope for investigating the possibilities of deliberately creating a path.
The Research Training Group intends to explore organisational paths on four levels:
-- individual/personnel interaction/group,
-- organisation,
-- inter-organisational relationships and networks and
-- society (including branch and region),taking also the interdependence between these levels into consideration. The majority of the projects are empirical studies.
In general, the Research Training Group aims at developing a managerial theory of organisational paths.

• DFG Programme: Research Training Groups
• Applicant Institution: Freie Universität Berlin
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Georg Schreyögg (†)
• Participating Researchers: Professor Dr. Martin Eisend; Professor Dr. Martin Gersch; Professor Dr. Michael Kleinaltenkamp; Professor Dr. Alfred Kuß; Professorin Dr. Susanne Lütz; Professor Dr. Thomas Mellewigt; Professorin Dr. Barbara Sieben; Professor Dr. Jörg Sydow; Professor Dr. Albrecht Söllner