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With the use of information technology (IT), organizations radically redesign their business processes and improve their business profitability and productivity. Previous information systems (IS) research has investigated whether or not IT improves business profitability and productivity. However, most of the previous studies failed to consider any contextual or moderating factors that might affect firm performance and productivity. Because it is intangible and intermediate benefits, e.g. better coordination, quality improvement, increased variety, and innovation, complicate the justification process for IT investments, this paper empirically examines the direct relationship between IT and coordination. The results of this study clearly show that IT spending is strongly associated with a decline in coordination costs. From the results, it can be inferred that IT enhances coordination of economic activities by reducing coordination costs, and thereby can improve firm performance and productivity.

The build-up of large-scale COVID-19 testing required an unprecedented effort of coordination within decentralized healthcare systems around the world. The aim of the study was to elucidate the challenges of vertical policy coordination between non-political actors at the national and regional levels regarding this policy issue, using Sweden as our case.

Interviews with key actors at the national and regional levels were analyzed using an adapted version of a conceptualization by Adam et al. (2019), depicting barriers to vertical policy coordination.

Our results show that the main issues in the Swedish context were related to parallel sovereignty and a vagueness regarding responsibilities and mandates as well as complex governmental structures and that this was exacerbated by the unfamiliarity and uncertainty of the policy issue. We conclude that understanding the interaction between the comprehensiveness and complexity of the policy issue and the institutional context is crucial to achieving effective vertical policy coordination.

Many studies have focused on countries’ overall pandemic responses, but in order to improve the outcome of future pandemics, it is also important to learn from more specific response measures.

This study aims to further the understanding of multi-level analysis in inter-organisational relationships by investigating the interplay of governance, cooperation and coordination in inter-organisational projects (IOPs) on sub-system and project levels.

The authors use the Viable Systems Model as a framework to analyse inter-organisational project governance, cooperation and coordination by adopting a multiple-case study.

The findings illustrate how governance and coordination mechanisms exhibit a filter-down effect on lower sub-systems while cooperation influence is confined within each sub-system. While remarking the importance of specific sub-systems on the overall project performance, the interplay of governance, cooperation and coordination across sub-systems appears to be complex, with governance influencing cooperation and coordination, whereas cooperation and coordination influence each other with an incremental effect.

This study defines two propositions that explain how multiple levels of analysis (project and sub-systems) can support the governance of large inter-organisational projects. The authors elaborate theory on the interplay of inter-organisational project governance, cooperation and coordination.

In today's digital and post-pandemic era, construction teams can span their boundary to obtain important resources and support in computer-mediated ways. However, the benefits of computer-mediated team boundary spanning (TBS) are mostly assumed. Empirical evidence for these benefits is in lack. Thus, this study attempts to investigate the influence of computer-mediated (instant messaging in this study) TBS on construction project performance and the underlying mechanism.

From the multiteam system (MTS) perspective, this study employs the input-process-outcome (IPO) framework and coordination theory to explore the influence of instant messaging-based team boundary spanning (IMTBS) on construction project coordination processes and project performance. A theoretical model is built and validated with a survey involving 206 construction projects.

Results show that IMTBS positively affects knowledge integration and project coordination, but negatively affects project commitment. The positive link between IMTBS and project performance is attributable to knowledge integration and project coordination. Further, project commitment is also found to negatively mediate the relationship between IMTBS and construction project performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to empirically investigate the influence of TBS on construction project performance. As such, this study contributes to the literature on TBS in the construction field. In addition, the findings of this study unveil the double-edged characteristic of IMTBS, which should attract managers' attention. This also indicates that the form of TBS is a significant determinant of its effectiveness, which should attract scholars' attention in the future.

The coordinated development of the urbanization and construction industry is crucial for the sustainable development of cities. However, the coupling relationship and coordination mechanism between them remain unclear. To bridge this gap, this study attempts to explore the level of coupling coordination between new urbanization and construction industry development and investigate the critical driving factors influencing their coupling coordination degree.

By referring to the existing literature, two index systems were established to evaluate the development level of the new urbanization and construction industry. The spatiotemporal characteristics of the coupled coordinated development of the new urbanization and construction industry in China from 2014 to 2020 were investigated using the coupling coordination model. The Markov chain and geographic detector were adopted to understand the transition probability and driving factors of the coupling coordination degree.

The results indicate that the coupling degree of China's new urbanization and construction industry is high, and the two systems exhibit obvious interaction phenomena. However, the construction industry in most provinces lags behind the new urbanization. A positive interactive relationship and coordination mechanism has not been established between the two systems. Furthermore, the  coupling contribution degree of the driving factors from high to low is as follows: market size > labor resource concentration > government investment ability > economic development level > industrial structure > production efficiency > technology level. Accordingly, a driving mechanism including market, policy, economic, and production technology drivers was developed.

This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by providing a set of scientific analysis methods to address the deficiency of coordination mechanism research on new urbanization and the construction industry. The results also provide a theoretical basis for decision makers to develop differentiated sustainable development policies.

This study aims to study research on franchise chain performance that has focused on franchisors’ efforts to align their interests with those of franchisees to address partner uncertainty. In contrast, the question of what a franchisor should do to address another type of uncertainty and task uncertainty remains understudied. The authors suggest a franchisor’s coordination as a key means of alleviating task uncertainty and ongoing support and plural form as two mechanisms of coordination. The authors also posit that aligned interests between the franchisor and the franchisee improve, whereas one-sided interest impedes, chain performance. Furthermore, providing greater ongoing support or deploying plural form amplifies the positive effect of aligned interests on chain performance.

The authors relied on secondary data to test the hypotheses. The authors collected data for analysis from Bond’s franchisee guide and Nation’s Restaurant News restaurant database. They also tested the framework by analyzing 17-year, panel data of 71 restaurant chains operating in the USA and Canada using system generalized method of moments.

Results show that aligning interests does improve chain performance, but that the positive effect is amplified when aligned interests are matched with a chain’s provision of ongoing support or use of plural form.

The authors explicate why it is not enough to address the misaligned interests or lack of coordination alone; a chain manager needs to address both of these problems together. In addition, the authors explicate how two franchisee coordination mechanisms – ongoing support and plural form – help a chain augment the beneficial effect of aligning interests on chain performance. Without solving the twin problems of misaligned interests and coordination simultaneously, a chain is unlikely to achieve its full performance potential.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects that customer structured and unstructured information sharing (IS) can have on customer operational and strategic coordination and on supply chain performance (SCP). In addition, the study examines how customer IS influences customer coordination under various levels of demand uncertainty (DU).

The conceptual model for this study is designed on the basis of information-processing theory (IPT). Using data collected from 622 manufacturers in mainland China and Taiwan, the theoretical model is tested using the structural equation modeling method.

The authors find that both customer structured IS and unstructured IS are positively associated with customer strategic coordination. Customer structured IS increases customer operational coordination, but customer unstructured IS does not. DU positively moderates the relations between customer unstructured IS and strategic coordination, and between customer structured IS and operational coordination. Also, DU negatively moderates the relationship between customer structured IS and strategic coordination. Customer strategic coordination is positively related to SCP and to operational coordination. Customer operational coordination has no significant impact on SCP.

This study deepens our understanding of customer IS by distinguishing between customer structured and unstructured IS. The study also provides a greater understanding of customer coordination by making a distinction between the customer strategic and the operational coordination. The findings extend the empirical application of IPT. In addition, this study’s findings direct SC managers to apply varied customer IS practices that can enhance specific kinds of customer coordination activities, thereby enabling improved SCP.

The paper aims to compare the coordination of supply chain networks in contractually different complex construction projects.

A comparative case study of the coordination of collaborative work in two successful hospital construction projects was conducted. One of the projects applied multiple dyadic contracts, whereas the other project applied one multi-party contract between the parties. The projects were located in the USA. Data were collected by observing the coordination on the construction sites for six weeks and by conducting 72 interviews.

The paper shows that depending on the contract type, the timing and extent of complementary procedural coordination differs during projects. Compared with one multi-party contract, the dyadic contracts needed to be complemented during the design phase with three additional procedural coordination mechanisms: organizational design, processes for collaborative work and integrated concurrent engineering sessions. Additionally, common rules of conduct were taken into use during the construction phase. However, regardless of the contract type, procedural coordination mechanisms, such as co-located working, collaborative decision-making in inter-organizational meetings, a liaison role and shared project goals were needed throughout the projects.

If multiple dyadic contracts are applied, procedural coordination mechanisms have to be co-created by all supply chain parties at the beginning of the project.

The paper provides an understanding on successful contractual and complementary procedural coordination mechanisms of supply chain networks in complex construction projects.

This study aims to examine how daily communication and transactive memory systems (TMSs) promote implicit team coordination, meaning when team members cooperate smoothly without engaging in explicit communication, in organizations. In TMSs, members share knowledge of who-knows-what with one another.

A survey was conducted with 216 teams consisting of 1,545 people in three organizations. The relationships among daily communication, TMSs and implicit coordination in the survey data and in team performance were analyzed using multi-level structural equation modeling.

Results confirmed a significant influence process model in which “daily communication → TMS → implicit coordination → team performance” at the team level. Therefore, as hypothesized, implicit coordination is positively related to team performance and daily communication has a positive relationship with implicit coordination through mediation by TMSs.

This study demonstrated the evidence of the relation between implicit coordination, TMS, team performance in organizational settings by using multi-level structural equation modeling.

The purpose of this paper is to present a simulation‐based evaluation method for the comparison of different organizational forms and software support levels in the field of supply chain management (SCM).

Apart from widely known logistic performance indicators, the discrete event simulation model considers explicitly coordination cost as stemming from iterative administration procedures.

The method is applied to an exemplary supply chain configuration considering various parameter settings. Curiously, additional coordination cost does not always result in improved logistic performance. Influence factor variations lead to different organizational recommendations. The results confirm the high importance of (up to now) disregarded dimensions when evaluating SCM concepts and IT tools.

The model is based on simplified product and network structures. Future research shall include more complex, real world configurations.

The developed method is designed for the identification of improvement potential when SCM software is employed. Coordination schemes based only on ERP systems are valid alternatives in industrial practice because significant investment IT can be avoided. Therefore, the evaluation of these coordination procedures, in particular the cost due to iterations, is of high managerial interest and the method provides a comprehensive tool for strategic IT decision making.

Reviewed literature is mostly focused on the benefits of SCM software implementations. However, ERP system based supply chain coordination is still widespread industrial practice but associated coordination cost has not been addressed by researchers.