Lilla Hortoványi

Strategy Without Templates

Adaptation in Digital Environments

6.6 Pattern Sedimentation: From Fluid Adaptation to Structured Configuration

While earlier sections explained how firms act and learn under uncertainty, this section shows how repeated action gradually forms more stable structures that shape future behavior.

Repeated action does not remain fluid. Over time, some of these adjustments are retained and reused. What initially emerges as a local response can gradually become embedded in routines, processes, and technical arrangements. Through repetition, these elements accumulate and form more stable patterns that shape future action.

This process creates coherence, but it also introduces constraints. What once worked well may later narrow the range of viable alternatives. Structures formed through adaptation are not neutral repositories of learning; they can also become sources of rigidity. Organizational order, therefore, reflects accumulated adaptation rather than pure deliberate design.

As firms continue to adapt, they do so within structures created by earlier actions. When they act, test, and modify their activities, their range of options is already shaped by these prior patterns. Strategy is, therefore, not only shaped by current responses but also framed by the accumulated effects of earlier ones. What is built over time enables coordination, yet at the same time limits what can be changed. Consequently, strategy is progressively built, but what is built also shapes the next phase of action.

Figure 2 illustrates this process by showing how repeated adjustments, selective feedback, and emerging structures interact over time to shape strategic trajectories.

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Figure 2 Adaptive stabilization under partial opacity

Source: Author’s own elaboration.

Figure 2 highlights the central point of this chapter: strategy develops through recursive cycles of mediated experimentation and provisional stabilization rather than through prior design alone. Each cycle leaves behind residual structures, such as routines, data dependencies, and commitments, that shape subsequent reconfiguration. Adaptation, therefore, proceeds as a path-dependent process formed through interaction rather than deliberate design alone.

Tartalomjegyzék

Kiadó: Akadémiai Kiadó

Online megjelenés éve: 2026

ISBN: 978 963 664 204 4

Gazdaság

What happens when understanding comes only after action has already begun?

Traditional strategy rests on the assumption that organizations can understand their environment before deciding how to act. Yet the conditions that once allowed organizations to rely on benchmarking, best practices, and proven strategic templates can no longer be taken for granted. Today, organizations increasingly face situations for which no clear roadmap exists. Established assumptions become less reliable, familiar reference points lose their clarity, and strategic decisions must be made before their consequences can be fully understood.

Strategy Without Templates explores how organizations learn, adapt, and navigate environments in which uncertainty is pervasive and established templates are absent or no longer sufficient. Instead of treating strategy as a process of prediction and planning, the book explores how strategic paths take shape through action, experimentation, adjustment, and learning.

A central insight in the book is that temporary solutions are often necessary. What begins as a practical response to an immediate challenge may gradually shape future possibilities in unexpected ways. Some solutions create new opportunities and sources of advantage. Others become constraints that are difficult to overcome.

Hivatkozás: https://mersz.hu/hortovanyi-strategy-without-templates//

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