Eric Zackrison, David Seibold, and Ronald E. Rice's paper. "Organizational coordination and communication: A critical review and integrative model" was selected as a Top 4 Paper by the Organizational Communication Division of the National Communication Association, Chicago, November, 2014.
We identify, and then attempt to redress, four problematic issues in the organizational coordination literature. First, we distinguish coordinating as the overarching process, coordinating mechanisms as the structures that are brought to bear, and coordination as the in situ interaction. Second, we explicate and distinguish coordinating mechanism from coordination, and re-frame the myriad mechanisms in past research into three levels of consciousness specified by structuration theory. Third, we propose a model relating structures (mechanisms) that affect practices (coordination) to outcomes—all within organizational members’ ongoing streams of activity and interaction. Fourth, we theorize organizational coordination as a distinctly communication phenomenon.
Speaker: Erik Zackrison, ejzackrison@umail.ucsb.edu