The Nature and Replication of Routines Geoffrey M. Hodgson 24 December 2004 The Business School, University of Hertfordshire, De Havilland Campus, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, UK http://www.herts.ac.uk/business http://www.geoffrey-hodgson.ws Address for correspondence: Malting House, 1 Burton End, West Wickham, Cambridgeshire CB1 6SD, UK g.m.hodgson@herts.ac.uk KEY WORDS: routines, organizations, habits, replicators, Richard Nelson, Sidney Winter ABSTRACT This essay proposes that routines are organizational dispositions to energize conditional patterns of behaviour within an organized group of individuals, involving sequential responses to cues. Accordingly, routines more than individual habits, because they involve structured interactions between individuals, and accordingly properties and capacities that are not found in the individuals taken severally. Following the analogy of Nelson and Winter (1982) of ‘routines as genes’ it is proposed that routines may be treated as social replicators. To sustain this proposition, routines must be treated as capacities to energize paper, rather than behaviour as such. The essay also discusses how routines act as repositories of knowledge and how they replicate.