Explaining the distinctiveness of coordination through an in-depth study of a major construction project

In this thesis, I aim at explaining how coordination is a distinctive organisational phenomenon. I critically evaluate and characterise existing organisation theory of coordination as limited insofar as coordination is conflated conceptually with many different organisational processes; most notably, with communication and knowledge sharing. On deeper examination, I attribute this lack of understanding to the unreflective way organisation theorists collectively have studied coordination. I thus draw upon a critical realist philosophy of science in order to engage in a metatheoretical discussion and explore how coordination can be studied more methodically. From that discussion, I outline some fundamental research principles, which accentuate the significance of context in examining phenomena of coordination. On the basis of those principles, I implemented an intensive research design in the context of a major construction project. In particular, the focus of my empirical research has been on the contract award project for selecting a 'partner' supplier for construction and project management services. I report on my empirical findings by taking two steps. As a first step, I elucidate the properties of the context of the contract award project, which, I argue, provide the conditions for coordination. As a second step, I illuminate how those properties are involved in and impinge upon the efforts of organisational actors to accomplish the project and coordinate over time. My findings reveal that the historically constructed project context not only made the procurement process possible, but also provided a mix of conditions for coordination. These conditions, I show, create heterogeneous production demands, with which organisational actors attempt to cope by coordinating. In essence, I argue, organisational actors coordinate by 'engineering' compromises and connections among these heterogeneous demands. On the basis of my empirical insights, I re-imagine coordination as the phenomenon of 'engineering' compromises and connections among heterogeneous demands emanating from organisational contexts; a processual phenomenon, I claim, that enables organisational accomplishment over time. Effectively, I raise claims for original contributions to organisation theory of coordination by developing a novel theoretical framework, whose distinctiveness I highlight by proposing the analogy of 'diarthrosis'. Finally, I validate the usefulness of the new theory through using it to re-describe existing perspectives on coordination and demonstrate how organisation theorists' confusion regarding coordination may be resolved.