Routines are an important explanatory element of evolutionary economics. Nelson and Winter note that the roles played by routines include:

a. Routines are one of the reasons firms can be expected to act in the future much as they have in the past

b. Routines are important to the storing and accessing of knowledge in contrast to the neoclassical assumption that all techniques and production functions are known and accessible regardless of whether or when they have been employed

c. Routines often include ways of reducing potential organizational conflicts that might occur under less consistent and understood behavioral rules

d. The evolution of a routine explains how the state of science, technology and complexity of modern economies can arise given our human intellectual limitations.

e. All are roles or functions of routines.