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This paper seeks to contribute to a more effective co‐ordination of humanitarian operations by military and civilian organizations involved in a peace support mission in response to a complex emergency.

The information processing view, in particular Galbraith's typology of generic mechanisms for achieving co‐ordination, is taken as the theoretical framework. This framework is subsequently applied to the co‐ordination of humanitarian operations by military and civilian organizations. Empirical data are derived from a set of expert interviews with both military and civilian respondents in The Netherlands and a four week visit to Kabul and Baghlan, a province in northern Afghanistan. During this visit 40 military respondents have been interviewed and over 60 meetings have been held with local authorities, humanitarian organizations, small entrepreneurs, refugees and local villagers. Finally, conclusions are drawn and recommendations are provided with regard to a more effective co‐ordination of humanitarian operations in a peace support mission.

The article's main finding is that “self‐contained tasks” in combination with lateral relations are the dominant co‐ordination mechanisms. “Slack resources”, though observed in practice, is not considered a viable co‐ordination mechanism since this implies an excess, and thus waste, of scarce resources. “Information systems” are, unfortunately, not well‐developed leading to mismatches between policy and practice. Keeping “self‐contained tasks” as the major co‐ordination mechanism, the main recommendation is to develop and implement innovative “information systems”, that can also be used to support “lateral relations”, in particular those between military and civil actors.

The paper applies the information processing perspective to a unique and important subject, namely co‐ordination between military and humanitarian organizations in peace support missions.

The purpose of this paper is to outline a methodology for strengthening an organisational design by identifying knowledge risks introduced by organisational structure and addressing those risks by implementing knowledge management measures.

By reviewing two anonimised case studies and by structuring personal experiences of the authors, the paper presents a four‐pronged process to deal with suboptimal organisational design.

Two case studies demonstrate that pro‐active knowledge management can help to alleviate weaknesses introduced by dominant orientations in organisational design.

The practical implications of this paper are that in organisational design and restructuring processes, knowledge management principles should be taken into account to prevent weaknesses to slip into the final structure. A simple yet powerful methodology that looks at knowledge risks can be used to defend against suboptimal designs.

Although there is extensive literature on networked organisations, this paper adds value by its knowledge risk‐based review of current organisational structure and its subsequent focus on using the knowledge factor as a prime design criterion of new organisational structure.

We are negotiating all the time: with customers, suppliers, trade unions, our family ‐ indeed, all with whom we come into contact. In business, in particular, negotiation needs management. There are said to be eight stages in negotiation: prepare, argue, signal, propose, present the package, bargain, close and agree. At the proposal stage one must be clear about what one must achieve, what one intends to achieve, and what one would like to achieve. The approach to constructive and competitive negotiation, the role of consultation, how to cope with deadlock and conflict, cross‐cultural negotiation, and the art of compromise are reviewed. The development and use of teams in negotiation is also an important factor, needing careful assessment. Negotiation will nearly always involve conflict, but steps must be taken to ensure that the participants remain on friendly terms.

To fill the gap, this article examines the inter-governmental collaboration mechanisms behind the platform curtain.

Behind the curtain is to look at what makes things happen backstage. For collaborative e-governance platforms, scholars have assumed that technological factors and user characteristics are the determinants for platform success. Little attention has been paid to the issue of how multiple governments, acting as platform co-builders and co-operators, interact and collaborate backstage to provide integrated e-services.

Based on data from survey questionnaires sent to government employees, the results show that governments’ information processing capacities cannot directly affect collaboration; however, these capacities can impact collaboration via the mediating variable of horizontal relations. In addition, we found that higher-ranking authorities are better suited to intervene once horizontal relations have been established and that more adaptable organizations are better at forming horizontal relations with peers. For governments participating in collaborative e-governance platforms, our findings are practically applicable.

The research question reads as: How do various government departments acting as platform co-builders and co-operators judge their collaboration performance, and what collaboration mechanisms contribute to it? We study this research question by constructing a conceptual model based on the Organizational Information Processing Theory (OIPT) and the Collaborative Governance Theory (CGT), both suggesting information processing capacities, organizational flexibility, horizontal relations and vertical intervention as indispensable factors influencing collaboration performance in ICT-supported groupwork. We propose and test four hypotheses on the relationships among these four factors to reveal the inter-governmental collaboration mechanisms for cross-government platformisation projects.

The hospital sector in Norway has been continuously reorganized since 2002 and the reforms have created organizations that are functionally/vertically controlled, whereas the production lines are coordinated on a process or a lateral basis. The purpose of this paper is to focus on both the perceived functional vertical control and horizontal controls within and between the local hospitals and the regional administrative levels.

A national survey study, complemented with interviews of some key informants and document studies.

The study shows that the functional and vertical lines of management control are perceived to be operating according to the traditional views of management control. The study indicates that the horizontal tasks are not very well implemented, and we did not find interactive and lateral uses of management control systems for managerial purposes.

New control problems arise when services are to be coordinated between autonomous units.

The paper focuses on the control problems found within the horizontal, flat relationship between production units in hospitals; new organizational structures have emerged where lateral relations are important, but traditional control practices follow functional, vertical lines.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which notions of space, constituted by management accounting and operations, interact, conflict and are understood by operations managers in a variety of situations within the context of iron ore mining. The authors address a dual question: How do accounting space and production space relate to each other? And what does it mean for operations managers to reside in both those spaces at once?

The paper is based on field studies at a mining company involving operations managers who experience tensions between accounting and production responsibilities and must prioritize between different courses of action to create value.

In contrast to the view that management accounting poses a problem for operations managers in production environments, the authors show how especially discursive tensions foster reflection and choice. Operations managers prioritize their actions in accordance with management accounting or operations based on how they experience and reflect upon the tensions they encounter, dominating artifacts and their experienced relation to space. Operations managers are not tied to specific spaces, but they prioritize their responsibility to management accounting or operations depending on the space to which they feel a sense of belongingness.

Drawing upon a conceptualization of tensions between management accounting and operations as a spatial phenomenon, it is possible to understand the dilemmas experienced by operations managers in a dynamic and relational way. The authors propose that viewing tensions between management accounting and production as spatial phenomena enables a novel understanding of how such tensions can create reflexivity in responsibility with operations managers.

This paper aims to analyse how a multinational organisation uses technocratic and socio-ideological controls to manage tensions arising when integrating its international subsidiaries.

Through interviews and company documentation, the authors analyse how a global German family business firm integrates its international subsidiaries into the corporate context.

The findings suggest that technocratic and socio-ideological controls in combination help the firm manage three tensions – vertical vs lateral relations, standardisation vs differentiation of practices and centralisation vs decentralisation of decision-making – arising in the course of internationalisation. These results have important analytical implications for the understanding of how a high level of compliance to technocratic control initiatives is achieved. Prior work has, in the main, focussed on the resistance to technocratic controls without paying much attention to compliance. Specifically, the authors show how managers can use socio-ideological control to achieve a high level of compliance among employees when implementing technocratic controls.

The results suggest that managers in multinational firms need to pay careful attention to the tensions that are created when they internationalise and to apply a combination of technocratic and socio-ideological controls to manage these tensions.

There is limited knowledge of how managers use socio-ideological control to enact a particular form of experience for their employees and to create a highly valued sense of purpose. The findings suggest that these controls, in combination with technocratic ones, serve important roles when organisations expand internationally.

When do you throw it all away? The first senior female in a male-dominated business school decides it all comes down to a question of principle – and maybe a few others. What is the best balance between her responsibilities to students, family, and the next generation of female leaders? Can she both be true to herself and compromise? What factors should influence this decision? This case brings together questions about power and influence, rational decision-making, leadership, and the intra and inter-personal responsibilities of organizational “firsts.” Further, issues related to a university's effort to better compete within the global higher education marketplace, provide a valuable opportunity to explore institutional approaches to promoting diversity, inclusion, and cultural competency.

This case, which was developed from primary sources, highlights the array of competing objectives and personal and political tensions involved in university administration.

This case was designed for graduate students in Masters of Public Administration, Masters of Business Administration, Masters of Education in Organizational Leadership, or similar graduate degrees that include significant management and leadership content. Students working with this case should have already completed foundational courses in topics such as organizational management, public policy, leadership, strategic human resources management, or their equivalents within their respective programs of study. Virtually all of the issues raised by this case address core themes, concepts, theses, and theories associated with an accredited graduate program in educational management, business or public administration.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theory of the organizational changes related to the production‐planning process that facilitate application of form postponement (FP), an increasingly popular operations‐design principle meant to alleviate the negative impact of product variety and customization on operational performance.

To achieve the theory‐building objective, a multiple‐case study involving four cases in the machinery industry was designed. In the inductive theory‐building process, the authors borrowed from the information‐processing theory to further corroborate the internal validity and generalizability of the findings.

The theory proposed by the author indicates that greater utilization of lateral relations in the production‐planning process, higher production‐planning frequency, greater degree of self‐containment of the production‐planning task, and simplification of the production planning‐related environment favor application of FP.

The level of analysis of the theory is the production‐planning process of a product family within a company. Future research could extend inquiry of the organizational antecedents of FP at both higher and lower levels of analysis, such as the organization as a whole or the individuals participating in the production‐planning process.

The theory supports managerial decision making by suggesting how to redesign the organization part involved in the production‐planning process of a product family in order to apply FP. The difficulty and cost of this organizational redesign effort should be taken into account when companies consider FP implementation.

Past research has focused on changes to product design and to the manufacturing and supply chain process that enable FP. This paper augments the understanding of FP enablers by developing the first model of organizational antecedents of FP. It also responds to calls for more research integrating insights from organization theory and operations/supply chain management.

This paper examines the arrangements made for innovation, research and development in professional service firms, particularly management and public relations consultancies. The paper compares arrangements made in management and public relations consultancies, drawing on the experience of international management consultancies and public relations consultancies in the UK. The paper outlines some of the principles by which the processes of innovation, research and development are managed in professional service firms, and draws conclusions relating to practice development in public relations.