一個(gè)企業(yè)的路徑依賴(lài)指的是對(duì)該公司是從哪里來(lái)的，以及它的標(biāo)志（大衛(wèi)，1985）的理解。大衛(wèi)指出，公司已在過(guò)去的路徑體現(xiàn)它可能需要在未來(lái)的路徑。據(jù)了解，路徑依賴(lài)的概念非常廣泛，可以應(yīng)用到每個(gè)領(lǐng)域， 它的方式，它的功能，筆耕文化傳播，它的知識(shí)基礎(chǔ)，管理風(fēng)格等，有趣的是，不同的概念是相通的，可以集體幫助我們更好地了解企業(yè)的運(yùn)作。

技術(shù)軌跡標(biāo)志著一個(gè)工藝設(shè)計(jì)或范式（多西，1982年）的演變。這涉及產(chǎn)品和服務(wù)的發(fā)展。技術(shù)軌跡通過(guò)R＆D不斷的對(duì)一個(gè)給定的技術(shù)發(fā)展。若一個(gè)公司 “堵在”了自己的技術(shù)基礎(chǔ)可能性，因而無(wú)法看看外面的新思路和創(chuàng)新的新技術(shù)。

路徑依賴(lài)與技術(shù)軌跡是密切相關(guān)的核心競(jìng)爭(zhēng)力的概念。如果路徑依賴(lài)反映了一個(gè)公司，那么核心競(jìng)爭(zhēng)力反映為何該公司已經(jīng)采取了具體的路徑。

谷歌的核心競(jìng)爭(zhēng)力在于硬件和軟件工程（阿諾德，2005）。正是這種能力，決定了谷歌的穩(wěn)定，比如什么樣的產(chǎn)品和服務(wù)谷歌搜索，Gmail，Orkut的，谷歌Wave，谷歌地圖，谷歌地球等。C.K.教授普拉哈拉德和加里·哈默爾教授指出，“核心競(jìng)爭(zhēng)力應(yīng)該提供各種各樣的市場(chǎng)潛力的訪(fǎng)問(wèn)。”此外，他們的核心競(jìng)爭(zhēng)力是通過(guò)其產(chǎn)品的成功反映了產(chǎn)品可以顯著的感知顧客的利。

Path Dependency of a firm refers to the understanding of where the firm is coming from, and where it is heading (David, 1985). It states that the path a company has taken in the past reflects the paths it could take in the future. It is critical to understand that the concept of Path Dependency is very broad and can be applied to each & everything that a firm does - be that the way it functions, its knowledge base, management style, etc. It is interesting to note that various concepts are interlinked and collectively help us in better understanding the functioning of an enterprise.

Technological Trajectories signifies evolution of a technological design or paradigm (Dosi, 1982). This relates to the development of both products and services. Technological Trajectories develop through constant R&D on a given technology. There is a possibility that a firm gets ‘Locked-in’ into its own technological base, and thus be unable to look outside for new ideas and innovate on a new technology.

The concept of Path Dependency & Technological Trajectories is closely related to the concept of Core Competencies. If Path Dependency reflects what a firm has done in the past, then Core Competency reflects why the firm has taken that particular path.

Google’s core competency lies in hardware and software engineering (Arnold, 2005). It is this competency that determines the kind of products and services that come out of Google’s stable e.g. Google search, Gmail, Orkut, Google Wave, Google Maps, Google Earth, etc. Everybody that Google hires has to specialize in some aspect/s of this core-competency. As Prof. C.K. Prahalad and Prof. Gary Hamel have pointed out, “a core competency should provide potential access to a wide variety of markets.” Also, their core competency has contributed significantly to the perceived customer benefits, which is reflected through the success of their products/offerings.

The core competency of Google is quite broad in terms of its characteristics and also capable of absorbing new technologies that are developed with time, either within the firm or outside. This shows that they understood the concept of technological trajectories, while conceiving their core competency, and did not want to get locked-in into it, thus keeping the doors open for the future.

Absorptive capacity of a firm also turns out to be path dependent and signifies trajectories. It is important to understand that a firm’s absorptive capacity largely depends upon its existing knowledge. Prof. Cohen & Prof. Levinthal (1990) have defined Absorptive Capacity as “the ability of a firm to recognize the value of new, external information, assimilate it and apply it to commercial ends.” As knowledge is cumulative and path dependent, prior knowledge is important to understand the new knowledge and commercialize upon it.

The reflection of Absorptive Capacity can clearly be seen in the development of Gmail – Google’s email service. Initially, all conversations with a particular person, regarding a particular subject, were communicated through separate emails. Paul Buchheit, one of the software engineers at Google, observed that users find it quite daunting to locate an email with a particular response (search an email). It is then that he thought that if all the emails pertaining to the same subject were listed as a thread, it would be much easier for the users to locate it and also it would be uncluttered (Merrill, 2007). It was the prior knowledge of the engineer regarding the software, combined with this new information that he received, which led to the development of Gmail.

The management structure at Google portrays path dependency as well. According to the book, The Google Story, the initial employees of the company were actually friends who studied at the Stanford University with Larry Page & Sergey Brin, co-founders of Google Inc. So the environment in Google was always casual and had little hierarchies. Even though the environment is casual, the co-founders still hold a tight grip on many of the company’s decisions (Smith, 2007). In fact, it is this casual atmosphere and horizontal management style that enhances Dynamic Capabilities in the organization. The Dynamic Capabilities model requires the management to timely respond to the changing environment by re-configuring and re-deploying internal and external competencies, skills and resources (Teece et al, 1997). A management system or organizational structure with fewer hierarchies facilitates quick execution and this not only helps in adapting quickly to the changing environment, but also provides a competitive advantage that is difficult to imitate.

Organization and management of innovation play a very important role in fostering innovations within an organization. It is empirical to understand the kind of environment that boosts innovations and then build it in your firm. Innovations require a supportive communication/learning channel that facilitates easy sharing of information and knowledge. Innovations are first conceived in the minds of individuals and then they get transformed into products/processes of enhanced value. To foster innovation means to foster the creativity of mind and provide them with the knowledge and the environment required to do so. This is better facilitated by cutting down the hierarchies or barriers or boundaries. Google provides a very good example in this context.

Before we talk about management of innovation at Google, it is important to understand that the major source of innovation and R&D in this firm is its employees/engineers. Google tries to avoid bureaucracy so that their engineers can develop good ideas at a faster pace (Weldie, 2009).People are encouraged to do what interests them and what they believe is important, because often the best ideas come from the employees. Google realizes the importance of right kind of people, so it tries to hire and retain people who are entrepreneurial, go-getters and who show enthusiasm and positive attitude.

The paper on The Organization and Geography of Japanese R&D (Kenny, 1994) talks about the importance of multi-functional teams. This can be seen in Google as well. Over time, people work on different projects in different departments and this enhances their skills and knowledge. As the employees come from diverse backgrounds and hold different perceptions, the opinions are wide in range and this brings a lot of value to the table (Merrill, 2007).

The article-Successful Industrial Innovation: Critical factors for the 1990s (Rothwell, 1992) states that providing ‘space’ to employees for research & intrapreneurship could result in interesting innovations and lead to the evolution of the company. By ‘space’ here we mean some freedom and supportive/learning environment and culture.

Google’s organizational culture provides enough space to employees to learn, experiment and grow. The casual and friendly environment promotes interaction between employees which results in enhanced knowledge base and thus promotes innovation. Lets us look at few things that facilitate this:

Firstly, in each of its offices, Google has a big cafeteria with large tables with maximum seating capacity. Managers have observed that people like to talk while having their food. As people from different product teams sit together on these tables, they begin to interact and debate about issues. Everybody can join the discussions and thus the interaction between them becomes quite diverse. This facilitates knowledge sharing and leads to collective learning (Merrill, 2007).

 Google has a compilation of ’10 Golden Rules’ which helps them motivate their employees. One of these is: To place employees in the same or different departments in close quarters so as to allow them to communicate and share information. This in turn makes co-ordination very efficient and simple and adds value to the organization. (Schmidt, 2005)

Employees have easy access to the management of Google. Employees can easily put forward their ideas or queries and receive relevant feedback. Even the co-founders of the company can be contacted. In fact, the co-founders hold a casual meeting every Friday evening where they invite open-discussions. Interestingly, this meeting is called ‘TGIF’ meet or ‘Thank God It’s Friday’ meet. Such a casual environment boosts flow of information and knowledge, provides confidence and thus enhances the ability to innovate.

Research and Development has another important component at Google. It is their 80-20 rule, where in employees can spend 20% of their work hours on any project that interests them, using the company’s resources. This rule has turned out to be very beneficial for the company as many products have come out of this 20% time - e.g. Gmail, Orkut, etc. The company demands creativity by giving the employees ‘free thinking time’ to develop their own projects (Rohit, 2007). Once the project has been developed, then the management monitors its growth quarter-on-quarter. If the project shows significant growth, then the management takes it up to another level and makes considerable investments in it. If a project is not performing well, then they let it die on its own over time as they believe that innovation is like a fragile flower that needs time and care to blossom and should not be crushed early. However, not all projects become successful. For one that succeeds, many fail. Thus it becomes important for an organization to have the risk appetite. Keeping this in mind, Google allocates a separate budget for such research and development initiatives by the employees (Merrill, 2007). The real strength behind Google’s success is its computing infrastructure and its employees’ ability to use this infrastructure as a development platform.

Technological trajectories suggest that a company should not get locked-in into their own technology and continuously search for new, better technologies-both within and outside. The concept of Path Dependency is very broad in its range. Many other concepts such as Core Competency, Absorptive Capacity along with management structure and organizational culture also reflect Path Dependency. This emphasizes the importance of determining which path to take at the beginning / inception, as it would be this path that an enterprise would build upon in the future. With reference to Google, if it would have chosen the path of strict hierarchies in its management structure initially and then would try to shift to a casual environment, like it has now, it would not only turn out to be expensive but also time consuming and may not be functionally effective as employees would have got used to the strict management style.

What seems clear is that in this ‘Knowledge Economy’, knowledge management plays a crucial role. As people are the carriers of knowledge, managing them and their minds becomes critical for the success of a company. Facilitating interaction and knowledge sharing among people from diverse backgrounds, encouraging people to experiment and not be scared of failing, adds considerable value to the organization. Also, the management structure and the culture of the firm help in boosting employee morale and encouraging creativity. Google has clearly demonstrated this by the way they manage knowledge flow within the organization and provide a platform to nurture and apply the knowledge and develop innovative products. It is rightly said, “Every individual has great potential, and all that is required is the right platform to exercise it” (Unknown).