Managing technical collaboration: methods and mechanisms

Summary form only given as follows. In strategic management, an extensive literature exists on make or buy decisions, which represent a choice between markets and hierarchies as coordinating mechanisms. Much less research exists on the mechanisms by which different functions in the value chain are coordinated within an organization. Meanwhile, the developing resource based view of the firm suggests that interfirm differences are crucially important in the understanding of strategy. The main stream of thought on the issue of how organizations do, in fact, manage this internal coordination follows William Ouchi's distinction between "bureaucratic" and "clan" (or cultural) controls. The current study uses a grounded theory model to examine the use of bureaucratic and clan controls among technical specialists who must coordinate their work across boundaries, both organizational and disciplinary. Results of the first stage of the study, obtained through personal interviews, suggest that this dichotomy between bureaucratic and dan controls, in many cases, may not reflect actual coordination processes. It was expected that some respondents would focus on interpersonal mechanisms, while others would concentrate on more bureaucratic or rule dependent techniques. This expectation was not met. Of the 12 individuals interviewed, only one mentioned ever using a coordination mechanism that could be considered bureaucratic, and that was an incentive system rather than a control mechanism. The other responses were exclusively descriptions of interpersonal techniques.