Organization as Process: Drawing a Line Between Endogenous and Exogenous Views

This paper offers a classification of process views in organization studies. We start by assuming that distinctions may be drawn between ways that stability of entities is conceptualized in organizational analysis. From this point of departure we explore four different process views, namely: process as flows, process as programmes, process as recursive reproduction and process as connectivity. The first two views—process as flows and process as programmes—tend to build on the assumption that processes take place within relatively stable contexts, such as the organization or the institutional environment. This we refer to as an “exogenous” view. A second type of views of process is what we refer to as “endogenous” views, which are based on the assumption that stabilization of entities resides in the process itself.