Breaking a Path by Creating a New One: How Organizational Change Boosts Children’s Cancer Care

Abstract

The theory of organizational path dependence helps us to understand why organizational change is sometimes extremely difficult, if not impossible. Although recent conceptualizations of path dependence allow for strategic agency, the theory is still underspecified regarding how to break an organizational path. In an attempt to develop the theory in this regard, we make use of a case in the sphere of global health with an undisputed life-saving impact. More precisely, we trace a significant improvement in the field of pediatric cancer care back to path-breaking organizational change: the successful introduction of multicenter cooperation within a healthcare system that is arguably locked into a centralization path. Drawing on longitudinal research conducted within Russian children’s hospitals, we conclude that path-breaking change is an intricate process based upon distinct activities, and supported by mechanisms, directed towards the creation of a new organizational path.