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DISCUSSION: FACTORS IN THE IMPACT OF COORDINATION THEORY
In this section, we briefly discuss the factors involved in the level of adoption of CT. To analyze
this success, we draw on work by Martens (2003). Based on a study of the life history of theories,
she suggested eight factors important to the success of a theory, grouped into empirical, theoreti-
cal, and social factors.
Empirical Factors
Martens notes three empirical factors for the success of a theory: that the theory is applicable to a
wide variety of phenomenon; that the phenomena are salient; and that the constructs are defined
in a way that facilitates replication and testing. CT does generally well on these empirical crite-
ria. First, our review of the citations discussed above shows that CT has been applied to a diverse
range of settings. Major areas include:
• Software engineering (e.g., Crowston, 1997; Crowston and Kammerer, 1998; Faraj and Sproull,
2000; Krieger et al., 2003; e.g., McChesney, 1997),
• Systems design (e.g., Bernstein and Klein, 2002; e.g., Bernstein and Klein, 2002; Bui, 2000;
Bui and Lee, 1999; Klein and Bernstein, 2004; Klusch et al., 2003; Ossowski and Omicini,
2002; Ricci et al., 2003; van Breemen and de Vries, 2001),
• Business processes (e.g., Albino et al., 2002; Lee and Lee, 1999; Lizotte and Chaib-draa, 1997;
e.g., Sikora and Shaw, 1998),
• Supply chains (e.g., Bello et al., 2003; Britton et al., 2000; den Hengst and Sol, 2002; Kobayashi
et al., 2003; e.g., Mehring, 2000), and
• Organizational simulations (e.g., Clancey et al., 1998).
For example, den Hengst and Sol (2002) focus on “interorganizational coordination
structures” (IOCS) and the factors (such as ICTs) that influence them, and in particular, to
assess how e-commerce will affect IOCS. The container-transport industry is used as a case
study. Crowston (1997) uses CT to analyze the software problem fixing process of a large mini-
computer manufacturer in order to identify sources of difficulties and possible alternative
processes. CT has also been used to analyze the cataloguing processes of the Flora of North
America digital library (Schnase et al., 1997), the benefits of active sick leave (Scheel et al.,
2002), methods for organizational process change (Kim, 2000), knowledge management
(Holsapple and Joshi, 2000; Holsapple and Joshi, 2002), and the use of genres for coordination
(Yoshioka et al., 2001).
Second, as we noted in the introduction, in these diverse areas, many researchers have noted
the importance of coordination problems and the potential for computer systems to help groups of
people work together better, arguing for the salience of coordination as a research topic.
For the final factor though, testability, we note a negative result, since CT is not currently
presented in a way that facilitates testing. Indeed, an early critique of CT, as mentioned above,
was that it was not a theory at all, because it did not provide a list of hypothesized relationships.
Martens's research suggests that it would be useful for the progress of CT to be able to state a set
of testable propositions or hypotheses. These would likely be in the form of a process model,
identifying factors that are necessary but not sufficient for better coordination of a process.
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