CHAPTER
Pragmatism and Routine Dynamics
5
DIONYSIOS D. DIONYSIOU
. . . an attitude of orientation is what the pragmatic
method means. The attitude of looking away from
first things, principles, ‘categories’, supposed
necessities; and of looking towards last things,
fruits, consequences, facts. (James, 1907: 54–55
emphasis added)
5.1 Introduction
In this chapter, I explore the relevance of classical
pragmatism to the study of Routine Dynamics.
The two perspectives share a processual-relational
view of the world, an emphasis on agency and
situated action and reject all forms of dualism in
the theorizing of social phenomena, suggesting
that a rich common ground exists to allow cross-
fertilization. While the influence of pragmatist
ideas to the study of routines has so far been
limited, pragmatism as a ‘problem solving’ phil-
osophy holds great promise in advancing further
our understanding of routine enactment in the face
of increased novelty, contingency and potential-
ity, characteristics inherent to the nature of rou-
tines as processes.
Pragmatism, the ‘most distinctive philosoph-
ical movement to emerge in the United States’,
emerged in the last quarter of the nineteenth
century as a radical critique of Cartesianism
and its principle of the self-certainty of the
doubting ego as foundational for philosophy
(e.g., Bernstein, 1992: 833; Lorino, 2018). This
principle was responsible for a number of
inescapable dualisms (e.g., mind/body, mental/
physical, fact/value) that haunted modern phil-
osophy and which pragmatists were determined
to put aside, along with the traditional
philosophical quest for absolute certainty.
The four major figures in the development of
Classical Pragmatism were Charles Sanders
Peirce, William James, John Dewey and George
Herbert Mead (Bernstein, 2010; Joas 1996;
62
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Lorino, 2018). The founders of classical pragma-
tism drew on a variety of intellectual orientations
(British empiricism, Kant, Hegel and Darwin) and
there were sharp differences in their intellectual
backgrounds, training and interests. Despite these
differences, here I focus on the common themes
that tied these thinkers together. For a more
detailed exposition to classical pragmatism there
are sources that interested readers may find useful
(e.g., Bernstein, 2010; Lorino, 2018; Menand,
2002; Misak, 2013).
The chapter unfolds as follows. I discuss briefly
the emergence of classical pragmatism and the
common themes in the ideas of the four major
figures. I also explore the commonalities between
the key pragmatist ideas and the theoretical
assumptions that underpin Routine Dynamics the-
orizing and trace their influence in the study of
Routine Dynamics. Concluding, I suggest that a
pragmatist perspective has much to offer to the
study of routines as dynamic, processual phenom-
ena, and discuss its implications and potential for
research in Routine Dynamics.
5.2 Classical Pragmatism as a
Philosophical Perspective: Key
Figures and Common Themes
William James, ‘the father of modern psychology
and the face of American pragmatism’ (Misak,
2013: 53), was the first to publicly introduce the
term ‘pragmatism’ as a new philosophical pos-
ition in 1898, in his address before the
Philosophical Union of the University of
California in Berkeley (Bernstein, 2010). James
said that he heard the term some twenty years
earlier from Peirce during the meetings of the
Metaphysical Club, an informal discussion group
who met in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Peirce, in
his now famous 1878 paper ‘How to make our

ideas clear’, formulated what subsequently was
referred to as the ‘pragmatic principle’ or ‘maxim’
(James, 1907: 47), namely, that our beliefs or
ideas are rules for action and their meaning lies
in their conceivable practical effects, the different
modes of action to which they give rise. Peirce,
therefore, called for a shift in our attention from
the origins of ideas and beliefs to their conse-
quences for conduct, from theoretical abstraction
to lived experience and concrete practice
(Emirbayer and Maynard, 2011). In this way, he
established the inseparability of meaning and
action in pragmatist thinking and of concrete
experience (experienced practical consequences)
as the ultimate test of our beliefs and ideas. His
concept of ‘inquiry’ through which ‘doubt’ is
resolved and new beliefs and habits of conduct
are developed, and the key role he attributed to
the community of inquirers in developing, testing
and validating our hypotheses and theories,
became central themes in pragmatist thinking
(Peirce, 1992). However, the word ‘pragmatism’,
‘caught on and spread like wildfire’ when James
published his Berkeley address (Bernstein,
2010: 3), and it is through his exposition that the
world perceived and understood pragmatism
(Misak, 2013).
James took Peirce’s pragmatic principle and
turned it to a philosophical orientation or ‘atti-
tude’ (see James’ opening statement), extending
it to the problem of the nature of truth. He sought
to help the public realize that philosophical
debates are important because the beliefs they
support lead to different ways of conduct
(Dewey, 1981: 46). The insistence of both Peirce
and James on the consequences and possibilities
of action was ‘almost revolutionary in its conse-
quences’ (Thayer 1982: 33); it suggested bringing
the future into consideration and with it an evolu-
tionary, processual view of the world filled with
emergence, chance and contingency. Classical
pragmatists abandoned the quest for certainty
and embraced indeterminacy wholeheartedly; all
our knowledge claims are fallible and open to
potential criticism (Bernstein, 1992). Such a view
leaves space for human agency, choice and cre-
ativity to shape the environment and the
unfolding of events (Joas, 1993); reason, or
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Pragmatism and Routine Dynamics 63
thought, in its general sense, has a creative and
constructive function (Mead, 1932). James
believed that we play a role in creating our future,
I, for my part, cannot escape the consideration,
forced upon me at every turn, that the knower is
not simply a mirror floating with no foot-hold
anywhere, and passively reflecting an order that
he comes upon and finds simply existing. The
knower is an actor, and co-efficient of the truth
on one side, whilst on the other he registers the
truth which he helps to create (1878: 17, italics
added).
This processual view of the world was shared by
all classical pragmatists, including John Dewey
and George H. Mead, who carried forward the
pragmatic movement. The idea that permeates their
thinking is that the social world consists of pro-
cesses that ‘connect all sorts of entities in relational
and recursive ways’ (Farjoun et al., 2015: 1789)
(see also Tsoukas [Chapter 3], this volume). For
Dewey, the distinction between the organism and
its environment is a distinction between different
phases of the same process of living; ‘the organism
is in and of the world’ (Dewey, 1917: 15). He
rejected the knower/known duality and viewed
the problem of knowing as a problem of living
and that thought and its object lie within the same
experience. Individuals, society and environment
are implicated in mutually constitutive relation-
ships or ‘transactions’; ‘[w]hat has been com-
pletely divided in philosophical discourse into
man and the world, inner and outer, self and
not-self, subject and object, individual and social,
private and public, etc., are in actuality parties in
life-transactions’. (Dewey and Bentley, 1949:
187). In other words, classical pragmatism is
underpinned by a processual/relational ontology
that is fundamentally anti-dualistic.
In his classic Human Nature and Conduct
(1922), Dewey offered a comprehensive account
of human nature and conduct and of intelligence
as a process involving the creative solution of
everyday problems and improving human life.
Dewey’s model of human conduct is characteristic
of the ‘pragmatist schema that anchors doubt in
action’ (Joas, 1996: 128). According to this
model, we typically follow our well-exercised
 64 Dionysios D. Dionysiou

habits in a relatively thoughtless manner; never- 5.3 Classical Pragmatism and

theless, our habits are frequently met with resist- Routine Dynamics
ance from the world or conflict with each other, so
that ongoing conduct is blocked (Dewey 1922: 5.3.1 RD and Classical Pragmatism:
173). This is when ‘thought is excited by the Shared Assumptions
irritation of doubt’ (Peirce, 1992: 127), that is,
Pragmatism has never been completely absent
we engage in deliberation, during which we
from organizational studies (e.g., Selznick,
thoughtfully experiment to find out ‘what the vari-
1957; Weick, 1979, 1995), but its influence has
ous lines of possible action are really’ (Dewey,
only recently reached research on organizational
1922: 190). The outcome of this reconstruction of
routines (e.g., Dionysiou and Tsoukas, 2013;
activity, if successful in dealing with the problem
Dittrich and Seidl, 2018). As Cohen (2007a)
of action, is a creative accomplishment (Joas,
notes, due to its deep roots in modern organiza-
1996: 129). Following Peirce’s work on inquiry,
tional theory (Cyert and March, 1963; March and
Dewey sought to develop a ‘unified theory of
Simon, 1958), work on routines had traditionally
inquiry’ that would help us resolve problematic
promoted a rigid, static view of routines that
situations in everyday life (Dewey, 1938).
emphasizes choice and considers ‘action as less
Dewey’s lifelong friend and colleague at the
problematic, following more or less automatic-
University of Chicago, Mead, is recognized as the
ally from choice’. (Cohen, 2007b: 505). In this
thinker who, next to Dewey, contributed most to
way, the so-called Carnegie School moved the
the development of pragmatism (Reck, 1963).
pragmatists’ emphasis on experience, action,
Mead, more than any other pragmatist thinker,
habit and emotions to the background and
developed a comprehensive and detailed social
brought back a number of dualisms that pragma-
theory of action and language (Bernstein, 2010)
tists abhorred (e.g., thought/action, fact/value,
and it is through his work that the relevance of
and means/ends).
pragmatism to sociology and social psychology
Things started changing during the past decade,
became apparent (Joas and Knobl, 2009). Mead’s
when Feldman (2000) and Feldman and Pentland
work exemplifies pragmatist thinking, as, for
(2003) challenged the traditional view by promot-
instance, in developing his theory of the genesis
ing a processual view of routines as emergent,
of the self (Mead, 1934), he transcended many of
ongoing accomplishments. Their work has been
the dualisms that still prevail in contemporary phil-
highly influential and gave rise to a new branch
osophy and science (Dionysiou, 2017). For Mead,
of research, ‘Routine Dynamics’, which is based
the individual ‘constitutes society as genuinely
on the idea that routines are practices with internal
society constitutes the individual’ (Mead 1935:
dynamics (Feldman et al., 2016). This radical shift
70). He maintained that ‘the behavior of an indi-
in our understanding of the nature of routines
vidual can be understood only in terms of the
brought the concept of routines much closer to
behavior of the whole social group of which he is
key pragmatist ideas. How much closer becomes
a member’ (Mead, 1938: 6) and in this way he laid
apparent when considering the key principles of
the foundation of a process theory of identity for-
practice theorizing (see also Feldman [Chapter 2],
mation (Joas and Knobl, 2009). Mead, above all
this volume) summarized by Feldman and
others, established the symbolic character of inter-
Orlikowski (2011: 1241) – the consequentiality of
action (Stryker, 1980) and his work was founda-
situated actions in the production of social life; the
tional to Symbolic Interactionism as a distinct
rejection of dualisms as a way of theorizing; and
perspective in sociology (Blumer, 1969). Finally,
the mutually constitutive nature of relationships,
his seminal theorization of temporality in The
all consistent with pragmatist thinking. Table 5.1
Philosophy of the Present (1932) has informed
summarizes the shared assumptions that underpin
contemporary accounts of agency that capture
Routine Dynamics theorizing and classical prag-
more fully the complexity of agentic processes
matism and suggests that there is sufficient
(Emirbayer and Miche, 1998).

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Table 5.1 Shared assumptions between Routine Dynamics and classical pragmatism
RD – Routines as practices (e.g., Feldman, 2000; Feldman
and Pentland, 2003; Feldman and Orlikowski, 2011;
Feldman et al., 2016)
Routines as processes, action transcends dualisms:
(agency/structure, mind/body, etc.)
Action in routines is situated
Relationality of mutual constitution (e.g., the mutually
constitutive relationship of performative and ostensive
aspects)
Stability is an accomplishment
Individuals and their agency matter – actors are
knowledgeable and often reflective
common ground for cross-fertilization between the
two perspectives.
In the following, I examine how pragmatism has
informed recent work in Routine Dynamics. As a
number of routine scholars realized the affinity of
Routine Dynamics theorizing with key pragmatist
ideas, they sought to explore pragmatism’s poten-
tial to advance our understanding of the dynamic
nature of routines as processes.
5.3.2 The Influence of Classical
Pragmatism in RD Research
The view of routines as flexible, emergent accom-
plishments (Feldman 2000; Feldman and Pentland
2003) gained rapid currency in the study of rou-
tines, so that when Cohen (2007a) argued first for
the relevance of classical pragmatism to the study
of routines, the field had already become more
receptive to pragmatist ideas. In particular, Cohen
(2007a) argued that Dewey’s (1922) model of
human nature and conduct, by accounting for the
interactions between habits, cognitions and
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108993340.007 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Pragmatism and Routine Dynamics 65
Classical Pragmatism
Rejects all dualisms as arbitrary conceptual ‘cuts’ made in
the continuum of the life process to facilitate linguistic
representation (e.g., Dewey, 1922; James, 1909: 285;
Mead, 1934)
Emphasis on concrete reality, facts, outcomes and their
meaningful experience. Reality ‘can be known adequately
only by following its singularities from moment to moment
as our experience grows’ (James, 1911: 99).
The two parts of a dualism (e.g., subject/object, individual/
society, mind/body) are ‘in actuality parties in life-
transactions’ (Dewey and Bentley, 1949:187). For instance,
individuals, society and nature are mutually constituted
(Dewey, 1922; Mead, 1934, 1938)
For the pragmatists, what ‘really exists is not things made but
things in the making’ (James, 1909: 263).
Individuals have an active role in creating the ‘reality’ they
face (James, 1878).
‘[C]ognition, and thought as a part of the cognitive process,
is reconstructive, because reconstruction is essential to the
conduct of an intelligent being in the universe’ (Mead,
1932: 37).
emotions, has great promise to illuminate the pro-
cesses involved in routine adaptation to novel cir-
cumstances and the paradoxical nature of routines
as ‘(n)ever changing’ patterns of interaction.
Dewey’s model has also been suggested recently
by Winter (2013: 121), albeit, this time as a useful
orientation to ‘strengthen the foundations and
enhance the fruitfulness of theories of organiza-
tional routines and capabilities’. Both Cohen and
Winter highlight the central role of habit in
Dewey’s work. Dewey suggested that habit should
not be reduced to mindless automaticity and repe-
tition, characteristics that pertain to a specific kind
of habit that he called a ‘routine’ or ‘dead’ habit
(1922: 71, 208). Instead, he emphasized the pri-
macy of ‘intelligent’ habit, which is ‘infused with
thought and feeling’ (1922: 71) and ‘grows more
varied, more adaptable by practice and use’ (1922:
72). Our habits filter ‘all the material that reaches
our perception and thought’. (1922: 32). Dewey’s
(1922) theorizing by seeing habit as fundamental
to human action, along with its interplay with
cognition and emotions, enables the ‘unpacking’
 66 Dionysios D. Dionysiou
of human agency and action, thereby offering a
richer and more realistic model of human conduct
than that assumed by modern organization theory
and economics (Cohen 2007b; Farjoun et al., 2015;
Winter, 2013).
Simpson and Lorino (2016) focus on Dewey’s
concept of habit along with two interrelated prag-
matist concepts, namely, inquiry and conversa-
tional transaction, suggesting that they may help
strengthen the processual theorization of routines.
They note that habits must be understood as social,
acquired and continuously modified through
experience (Dewey, 1922) and that they are mobil-
ized and continuously adapted through the process
of inquiry, which involves the transformation of an
indeterminate or doubtful situation into one that is
sufficiently unified so that a coherent course of
action can be anticipated (Dewey, 1938). The
mobilization of habits and inquiries is situated
within social and temporal contexts, where agency
plays a key role in the adjustment of conduct.
Situating routine enactment into the temporal and
relational contexts of the ongoing experience
reveals that at every moment, ‘the possibilities for
action are manifold, the future is open, and even
when uncertainty seems very low, options for
action are still contingent’ (Simpson and Lorino,
2016: 59). In particular, these authors emphasize
the pragmatists’ conception of agency as inher-
ently relational and temporal (Emirbayer and
Miche, 1998; Mead, 1932, 1934) and argue that
agency arises within the conversational flow,
which is ‘a mutually constituting dynamic that
engages the meanings of conversants’ situations
and conversants’ selves’. (Simpson and Lorino,
2016: 62). This process is not a mere interaction
among distinct entities, but a transaction (Dewey
and Bentley, 1949), in which ‘all entities partici-
pating in an inquiry are involved on an equal
footing and that their very definition and delinea-
tion is completely contingent on the progress of the
inquiry’ (Simpson and Lorino, 2016: 62).
Moreover, agency engages the past and the future
as resources that provide actors with meaning and
direction in the present moment. In this way,
Simpson and Lorino (2016: 65) propose a framing
of ‘the social and temporal dimensions of ordinary
everyday practice in terms of the mutually
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embedded and practically inseparable dynamics
of habit, inquiry and conversational trans-action’,
which highlights the processual nature of routines.
Howard-Grenville’s (2005) study of the road
mapping routine in a high-tech manufacturing
company contributes to the unpacking of agency
in routines by showing that participants’ temporal
orientations – to the past, present or future – shape
specific performances of the routine. To do so, she
draws on Emirbayer and Miche’s (1998) account
of agency, who, in turn, relied heavily on Mead’s
(1932) theorizing of temporality. Her findings
show that participants may choose to iterate on
earlier performances (primary orientation to the
past); apply elements of earlier performances prag-
matically as they simultaneously pursue multiple
ends (primary orientation to the present); or project
elements of earlier performances to plan for or
imagine future enactments of the routine (primary
orientation to the future) (Howard-Grenville, 2005:
629), thereby influencing the stable or flexible
performance of routines.
Tsoukas and I (Dionysiou and Tsoukas, 2013),
in a theoretical paper, rely on Mead (1934, 1938),
to propose a process model of routine (re)creation
‘from within’ and develop endogenous explan-
ations of routine (re)creation grounded on the
actions and understandings of mutually susceptible
participants. In this article, we focus in particular
on the process of the creation of the ostensive
aspect from the situated interactions of participants
(Feldman and Pentland, 2003). Mead’s (1934)
account of the process of emergence of the self is
central to our work, as it helped us theorize the
process through which routines emerge as collect-
ive, effortful phenomena, taking Mead’s (1934)
concept of ‘role-taking’ (i.e., taking fellow routine
participants’ roles into account to inform one’s
own actions) as the underlying mechanism. In par-
ticular, we propose that as participants in routines
interact with reference to a common activity, they
develop individual (routine-specific) selves and
shared understandings and habits that become
incorporated in the ostensive aspect of routines,
which in turn facilitates the alignment of their
actions to achieve coordination. The inherently
social, relational nature of the self, advanced by
Mead, helped us to clarify the construct of the

ostensive aspect, in an effort to account for both its
multiplicity and its capacity to introduce a level of
stability or ‘sameness’ in routine performances
over time. In particular, we argue that through
repeated performances over time, individual under-
standings (schemata) and habits incorporated in the
ostensive aspect of routines become ‘shared’ in the
sense of becoming at minimum compatible or con-
gruent (and therefore, not necessarily identical or
overlapping). This minimum compatibility or con-
gruence among individual cognitions and habits
enables the ‘patterning’ (Feldman, 2016) of inter-
actions by supplying participants with ‘mutually
consistent interpretations and evaluations of infor-
mation, as well as with reciprocal expectations
concerning what actions are appropriate for the
situation they face’ (Dionysiou and Tsoukas,
2013: 193), while it gives space for agentic inter-
vention and the creative resolution of problems of
action (Joas, 1996).
In a more recent work, Sutcliffe and
I (Dionysiou and Sutcliffe, 2019) draw from both
Dewey (1922) and Mead (1932) to propose a
revised conceptualization of ostensive patterns or
‘patterning’ (Feldman, 2016), according to which
‘patterning’ refers to the process of enacting pat-
terns of relations between participants’ cognitions,
habits and emotions to resolve emergent situations
(unexpected events, breakdowns, opportunities,
etc.). We suggest that as participants engage in
ongoing repetitive interactions in the context of
performing a routine, not only do their interactions
become patterned or organized in a particular way
but, as part of the same process of activity, so do
their individual understandings, habits and emo-
tions that relate to the enactment of a routine.
This theorizing exemplifies pragmatist thinking
by considering the individual and the collective
levels as continuous – performing and patterning
are implicated in a mutually constitutive process
or ‘transaction’.
Another important contribution in the field of
Routine Dynamics is Dittrich and Seidl’s (2018)
empirical study of a start-up pharmaceutical com-
pany, who applied Dewey’s (1922) notion of the
means-ends relationship to explore the full spec-
trum of intentionality in routines. Dewey (1922:
223) argued that ends or goals are not fixed and set
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Pragmatism and Routine Dynamics 67
before action, but are ‘ends-in-view’ that ‘arise and
function within action’. As he remarked, an end-in-
view, ‘is the means by which an activity becomes
adapted when otherwise it would be blind and
disorderly, or by which it gets meaning when
otherwise it would be mechanical. In a strict sense
an end-in-view is a means in present action.’
(1922: 226). By using this idea to interpret their
findings, Dittrich and Seidl (2018) challenge the
assumption, typically implicit in many routine
studies, that participants pursue ends determined
in advance of performing the routine. In particular,
they show how routine participants, when faced
with unfamiliar situations, develop new, emerging
ends-in-view by ‘foregrounding means within the
concrete situation at hand’. (2018: 129). This
emerging form of intentionality, in turn, can result
in updating routines’ goals. These findings suggest
that we should understand intentionality in routines
as a ‘spectrum’, ‘ranging from ends-in-view that
are primarily informed and aligned to any pre-
established goals (purposeful action) to ends-in-
view that are unrelated to any pre-established goals
(purposive action)’ (131, italics in the original).
As this brief review of extant work suggests, the
influence of classical pragmatism in the study of
Routine Dynamics is gaining momentum and
scholars in the field have demonstrated the fertility
of several key pragmatist ideas to the study of
routines. In the following section, I suggest that
there is still much that classical pragmatism could
contribute to our understanding of Routine
Dynamics.
5.3.3 Pragmatism and Routines Dynamics:
Future Directions and Implications
for Research
One of the most promising areas in which prag-
matism may help advance our understanding of
the nature of routines as processes is the role
of participants’ experience during the enactment
of routines in time (Langley and Tsoukas 2017;
Tsoukas [Chapter 3], this volume). Early research
in Routine Dynamics promoted a rich conception
of agency, according to which ‘routines are per-
formed by people who think and feel and care’
(Feldman, 2000: 614) and agency ‘involves the
 68 Dionysios D. Dionysiou
ability to remember the past, imagine the future,
and respond to present circumstances’ (Feldman
and Pentland, 2003: 95). Routine Dynamics
researchers, by relying mainly on ethnographic
methods, have developed rich descriptions of rou-
tine performances in diverse settings; however,
the lived experiences of participants, such as tem-
porality and emotions, with few exceptions (e.g.,
Grodal et al., 2015; Howard-Grenville, 2005),
have not been woven into theoretical accounts of
Routine Dynamics. A pragmatist perspective
prompts scholars of routines to ground their
explanations to participants’ experience, so that
resulting theories will help us return to the field
and shed more light on how these experiences
shape the unfolding of routines – following
James’ (1908: 17) suggestion that theorizing
‘begins with concreteness, and returns and ends
with it’.
Dewey’s (1922) model of human nature and
conduct helps in disaggregating the concept of
agency to focus researchers on how the interplay
of habit, cognition and emotion shapes the agentic
micro-processes involved in routine adaptation
and flexibility, and has the promise to capture
more fully participants’ experiences of the
unfolding of routines as processes. For example,
emotions, such as doubt or worry, alert us that the
situation demands our attention and motivate the
process of inquiry (Dewey, 1922; Locke et al.,
2008; Peirce, 1992;). As Dewey (1938: 70) noted,
‘a problem must be felt before it can be stated’.
Similarly, an intense emotional reaction to novel,
unexpected events during routine enactment (e.g.,
intense surprise, anger or panic) may overwhelm
routine participants’ capacity to respond adap-
tively (Loewenstein and Lerner, 2003) and result
in the breakdown of a routine or its re-direction in
unpredictable paths (for a review of the role of
emotions on routines, see Baldessarelli
[Chapter 26], this volume).
Moreover, because human experience is inher-
ently temporal (e.g., George and Jones, 2000;
Langley and Tsoukas, 2017), capturing partici-
pants’ experience of the relationship between
past, present and future helps in revealing the
nuances of the balancing between stability and
change in routines and the indeterminate nature
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of routines as processes. Although the role of
clock time and event time in the triggering and
sequencing of actions in routines has received
some attention from Routine Dynamics research-
ers (e.g., Turner and Fern, 2012; Turner and
Rindova, 2012, 2018; see Turner and Rindova
[Chapter 19], this volume), this has not been the
case with participants’ experience of temporality.
Howard-Grenville’s (2005) study discussed
earlier makes a first step in this direction by
showing that participants’ temporal orientations
(i.e., a primary focus on the past, present or
future) influence the persistent or flexible enact-
ment of specific routine performances. This con-
tribution can be further extended by examining
how participants experience the flow of time as
they encounter unique circumstances and how
this experience shapes the unfolding of routines,
both of which are important to our understanding
of the nature of routines as processes (Hernes,
2014; Langley and Tsoukas, 2017; Tsoukas
[Chapter 3], this volume). Mead’s (1932) theoriz-
ing of temporality is highly relevant here. As
actors try to make sense of emergent situations,
they integrate ‘what has happened before’ (i.e.,
the past) and what ‘might happen next’ (i.e., the
future) (Feldman, 2016: 31) to create a meaning-
ful experience of the present and decide what to
do next. Participants select particular elements of
the past to create new continuities between the
past and the present, which in turn open up for
them new possibilities for action. By attending to
participants’ evolving experience in time we are
likely to develop a nuanced understanding of
‘how things become the way they are in view of
the multiple possibilities of becoming’ (Hernes
2014: 3).
Dewey’s and Mead’s theorizing may also help
illuminate the processes through which routine
participants problem-solve in the face of dynamic,
indeterminate situations. In particular, problem-
solving from a pragmatist perspective highlights
the continuously evolving, transactional relation-
ship between habits and inquiry, means and ends,
problems and solutions, as well as situations and
actors, all of which become co-constituted
throughout the process of inquiry (Dewey, 1922,
1938; Simpson and Lorino, 2016). Such a view

promotes a more dynamic and exploratory
approach to problem-solving and learning com-
pared to traditional frameworks, which promote a
separation between cognition and action (we think
before we act) as well as means and ends (ends
precede action and define the means) (Lorino,
2018). Instead, for pragmatists, problem-solving
starts from a vague sense that ‘there is something
wrong’ in a situation while the problem definition
remains tentative and evolving during the process
of inquiry. Learning is highly situated and provi-
sional, fostered by the exploration of means–ends
relations during problem-solving, and is subject to
verification and revision based on new experi-
ences. Learning outcomes are not necessarily
explicit in nature but also become embodied in
habits, which become revised and renewed through
the process of inquiry (Dewey 1938: 104–110;
Joas, 1996; Lorino, 2018: 106–108).
The application of pragmatist ideas has several
methodological implications for the study of
Routine Dynamics. Although the classical prag-
matists did not develop an empirical programme
for research1 (Emirbayer and Maynard, 2011),
research conducted in the tradition of ethno-
methodology (e.g., Garfinkel, 1967; see also
López-Cotarelo [Chapter 4], this volume), con-
versation analysis (e.g., Sacks, Schegloff and
Jefferson, 1974), practice theory (e.g., Nicolini,
2009), as well as research employing ethno-
graphic methods of research (particularly partici-
pant observation) (see also Dittrich [Chapter 8],
this volume) are well-suited to put into practice
many pragmatist ideas.
Pragmatism-inspired scholars of routines may
also find Nicolini’s (2009) ethnographic method
useful, involving ‘a recursive movement of
zooming in and zooming out on the data and
between data and theory’ (2009: 120). By
‘zooming in’, scholars of routines may focus on
the situated performances of routines, paying
1
It must be noted, however, that that research in the
tradition of Symbolic Interaction has had a significant
contribution in the generation of empirical knowledge
by field research and is the disciplinary tradition that
informed the development of grounded theory (Locke,
2001).
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108993340.007 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Pragmatism and Routine Dynamics 69
attention to how participants, immersed in the flow
of activity, experience in a holistic manner (inter-
play of habits, emotions, cognition and temporal-
ity) the unfolding of routines, and tracing how
participants’ anticipations and retrospections con-
tribute to the meaningful resolution of everyday
problems of action and with what effects in the
stability and change of routines. ‘Zooming out’
helps in exploring the ‘thick texture of intercon-
nections’ (Nicolini, 2009: 128) or ‘transactions’,
within which routines are immersed.
Moreover, as a ‘problem solving philosophy’
(Farjoun et al., 2015), pragmatism places great
emphasis on how participants handle emergent
situations (discrepancies from expectations, real-
izations of opportunities, surprise, etc.) that chal-
lenge the continuous unfolding of routines
(Dionysiou and Tsoukas, 2013; Dittrich and
Seidl, 2018). These situations represent ‘turning
points in activity’ (Dewey, 1922: 223) that provide
researchers with unique opportunities to uncover
the ‘logic’ that is internal to routines as practices
(e.g., Feldman and Worline, 2016; Howard-
Grenville and Rerup, 2017) and explore the role
of participants’ ‘experimenting intelligence’ in the
creative resolution of problems (Joas, 1993: 248).
Similarly, Shotter (2010: 273) suggests that it is
within such situations ‘that we can find the
uniquely new beginnings for genuinely innovative
changes in organizations’. He proposes a ‘with-
ness’ approach (Shotter, 2006), which requires
the researcher to immerse himself or herself in
the practices in question and, in ‘dialogic inter-
action’ with practitioners, contribute to identifying
new possibilities for action. Wegener and Lorino
(2020) operationalize the withness approach by
embedding it within pragmatist inquiry and pro-
pose ‘pragmatist withness inquiry’ as a method-
ology for capturing the lived experiences of
researchers and practitioners along with the
changes in their beliefs and habits throughout the
process of inquiry.
Finally, Sandberg and Tsoukas (2011: 348–349)
discuss a number of techniques and methods well-
suited for studying breakdowns in routine perform-
ance, and how scholars of routines may actively
create a breakdown in a routine to uncover the
‘relational whole’ into which participants are
 70 Dionysios D. Dionysiou
absorbed. Overall, scholars of routines have a large
number of methods, tools and techniques available
in order to pursue a pragmatism-inspired, empirical
programme for research in Routine Dynamics.
5.4 Conclusion
As the ideas of the original Pragmatists are being
rediscovered, scholars in diverse fields of study find
that pragmatism offers useful resources in order to
tackle problems in a world that becomes increas-
ingly more complex, unpredictable and volatile. In
the field of Routine Dynamics, the influence of
pragmatist ideas has been limited so far but also
indicative of the promise of pragmatism as a
research programme to guide future research.
Pragmatism provides a rich and coherent con-
ceptual framework to the study of routines as inde-
terminate social processes, always ‘in the making’
(James, 1909: 263). Pragmatism augments the
tools scholars have for focusing on how people
go about their everyday activities in a world filled
with surprise, uncertainty and possibility, and for
developing further our understanding of routines as
emergent and effortful accomplishments and the
dynamics of stability and change in routines. In
particular, the pragmatist concepts of habit, emo-
tion and cognition and their interplay in human
conduct; of inquiry as a method to resolve every-
day problems; and the role of temporality in the
meaningful experience of present activities provide
scholars of routines with a rich conceptual toolkit
to theorize about the lived experiences of partici-
pants, which shape and are shaped by routine
enactment (e.g., Hernes, 2014; Langely and
Tsoukas, 2017). Pragmatism, therefore, prompts
us to pay attention to concreteness and its mean-
ingful experience, in order to weave into our theor-
izing what really matters to practitioners; only then
will our theories lead us successfully ‘back into
sensible experience again’ (James, 1909: 100).
I hope that this short exposition to classical
pragmatism and its relevance to the study of rou-
tines will help spread the message that ‘we can
continue to draw inspiration from the pragmatic
legacy and to develop it in creative ways’.
(Bernstein, 1992: 840).
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108993340.007 Published online by Cambridge University Press
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