COORDINATION THEORY - Human-Computer Interaction and Management Information Systems: Foundations - page 102

C HAPTER 7

COORDINATION THEORY

A Ten-Year Retrospective

K EVIN C ROWSTON , J OSEPH R UBLESKE , AND J AMES H OWISON

Abstract: Since the initial publication in 1994, coordination theory has been referenced in nearly
three hundred journal articles, topic chapters, conference papers, and theses. Coordination theory
provides an approach to a core problem in HCI: It analyzes group work to suggest alternative
approaches involving computer support. Coordination theory suggests identifying the dependen-
cies between the tasks the different group members are carrying out and the coordination mecha-
nisms the group uses to coordinate its work, and then considering alternative mechanisms. This
chapter will analyze the contribution of this body of research to determine how coordination
theory has been used for user task analysis and modeling for HCI. Issues that will be addressed
include: (1) how the theory has been applied; (2) factors that led to the success of the theory; and
(3) identification of areas needing further research.

Keywords: Coordination Theory, HCI, Process Analysis, Group Work

An increasingly ubiquitous application of computer systems is to help a group of people work
together better. To do so requires an appreciation of what the group is doing and how its members
might work together in a more efficient or effective manner. Such user/group task analysis and
modeling is at the core of MIS HCI research. A key issue in the analysis of group work is an under-
standing of the dependencies between the tasks the different group members are carrying out and
the way the group coordinates their work. However, many studies describe dependencies and
processes only in general terms, without characterizing in detail differences between dependen-
cies, the problems dependencies create or how the proposed coordination processes address those
problems (Grant, 1996; Medema, 1996). This vagueness makes it difficult or impossible to deter-
mine what alternative processes might be useful in a given circumstance. Similarly, it is hard to
translate from dependencies to specifications of individual activities or to uses of information and
communication technologies (ICT) to support a process—e.g., as part of system development dur-
ing a business process redesign effort (Davenport and Short, 1990; Hammer, 1990; Harrington,
1991; Harrison and Pratt, 1993).
In 1994, Malone and Crowston described a new approach to these problems, an approach they
called coordination theory (CT) (Malone and Crowston, 1994). Their 1994 paper presented exam-
ples of similar coordination problems encountered in a variety of disciplines and analyzed them as
arising from dependencies. For example, approaches to sharing resources (i.e., ways to manage the
dependency created when multiple tasks require the same resources) have been analyzed in eco-
nomics, organization theory, and computer science, among others. Other dependencies identified

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