Unravelling the Motor of Patterning Work: Toward an Understanding of the Microlevel Dynamics of Standardization and Flexibility

This paper examines how routine patterns are recognized as either stable or flexible and which mechanisms are enacted to maintain this patterning work. We address this question through an ethnographic case study analyzing how a catastrophe management organization enacts routines in a highly dynamic setting. Our findings first of all reveal that patterns described by the participants as either stable or flexible were nevertheless both performed...