Kalra, J;
Lewis, M;
Roehrich, JK;
(2020)
The manifestation of coordination failures in service triads.
Supply Chain Management
10.1108/SCM-03-2019-0115.
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Abstract
Purpose: This paper aims to investigate governance in service triads, specifically studying significant steering and connecting coordination failures, to reveal typically hidden characteristics and consequences. Design/methodology/approach: This study focuses on coordination functions and activities between a buyer (a government department), a customer (a military service) and two service providers. Rich data on these normally confidential service ties are drawn from an official report into the causes of a fatal accident involving a UK reconnaissance aircraft and specifically from the evidence presented regarding the earlier development of its complex safety case. The authors also analysed a range of additional secondary data sources. Findings: The authors examine the sources, drivers and manifestation of coordination failures. The authors uncover a series of coordination failures driven from the bridge position, revealing that while bounded rationality and opportunism influenced steering coordination failures, connecting coordination failures were associated with knowledge asymmetry, dyadic inertia and unethical practices. Practical implications: Organisations and governments delivering complex projects and knowledge-intensive professional services should guard against outsourcing the “coordination” activity to a third party, thereby relinquishing the bridge position. Handing over the bridge position to an integrator would leave the client vulnerable to coordination dysfunctions such as bounded rationality, opportunism, knowledge asymmetry, dyadic inertia and unethical practices. Originality/value: The study links the previously separate research streams of service triads and inter-organizational coordination. While extant research pays attention to mainly positive control functions, this study focuses on all three actors in two (failed) service triads – and highlights the impact of coordination activities and failures.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The manifestation of coordination failures in service triads |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1108/SCM-03-2019-0115 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1108/SCM-03-2019-0115 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Service triads, inter-organisational relationships, coordination, coordination failures; professional services; service operations; secondary data analysis |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10119089 |
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