Beyond collective entities: multilevel research on organizational routines and capabilities

Organizational routines and capabilities are thorny constructs, but their complexity has been largely underappreciated. In this paper, we illustrate how new and more complex understandings of organizational routines and capabilities can be generated. We do so by breaking them into parts and mapping their interrelationships. As component parts of routines and capabilities exist at different levels of analysis, our proposal to investigate their multiple relationships contributes to bridging the micro-macro divide in management. Specifically, we show how new analytical and methodological techniques can catalyze future research.