Toward a Theory of Coordinating: Creating Coordinating Mechanisms in Practice

  • Authors:

  • Paula A. Jarzabkowski;Jane K. Lê;Martha S. Feldman

  • Affiliations:

  • Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET, United Kingdom;University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia;Department of Planning, Policy and Design, School of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California 92697

  • Venue:
  • Organization Science
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

This paper uses a practice perspective to study coordinating as dynamic activities that are continuously created and modified in order to enact organizational relationships and activities. It is based on the case of Servico, an organization undergoing a major restructuring of its value chain in response to a change in government regulation. In our case, the actors iterate between the abstract concept of a coordinating mechanism referred to as end-to-end management and its performance in practice. They do this via five performative–ostensive cycles: (1) enacting disruption, (2) orienting to absence, (3) creating elements, (4) forming new patterns, and (5) stabilizing new patterns. These cycles and the relationships between them constitute a process model of coordinating. This model highlights the importance of absence in the coordinating process and demonstrates how experiencing absence shapes subsequent coordinating activity.