This article introduces the Special Issue and discusses the microfoundations of routines and capabilities, including why a microfoundations view is needed and how it may inform work on organizational and competitive heterogeneity. Building on extant research, we identify three primary categories...

We discuss the microfoundations of routines and capabilities, including why a microfoundations view is needed and how it may inform work on organizational and competitive heterogeneity. Building on extant research, we identify three primary categories of micro-level components underlying...

Microfoundations have received increased attention in strategy and organization theory over the past decade. In this paper, we take stock of the microfoundations movement, its origins and history, and disparate forms. We briefly touch on similar micro movements in disciplines such as economics...

In this essay we respond to Jepperson and Meyer’s [2011] critique of “action theories” and methodological individualism in sociology. We highlight fundamental problems with their argument, notably their misconception of methodological individualism(s) and the belief that this explanatory...

For decades, the literatures on firm capabilities and organizational economics have been at odds with each other, specifically relative to explaining organizational boundaries and heterogeneity. We briefly trace the history of the relationship between the capabilities literature and...

Sidney Winter (2011), Brian Pentland (2011), and Geoffrey Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen (2011) take issue with the arguments in Teppo Felin and Nicolai J. Foss (2011), along with more generally critiquing the ‘microfoundations project’ related to routines and capabilities. In this rejoinder...