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A TAXONOMY OF ORGANIZATIONAL

DEPENDENCIES AND

COORDINATION MECHANISMS

by

Kevin Crowston

CCS TR #174, Sloan WP# 3718-94

August 1994



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A TAXONOMY OF ORGANIZATIONAL DEPENDENCIES AND
COORDINATION MECHANISMS



KEVIN CROWSTON

The University of Michigan

School of Business Administration

701 Tappan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1234 USA

+1 (313) 763-2373
Fax: +1 (313) 763-5688
[email protected] .edu



August 17, 1994



A TAXONOMY OF ORGANIZATIONAL DEPENDENCIES AND
COORDINATION MECHANISMS*

ABSTRACT

Interdependency and coordination have been perennial topics in organization studies. The two
are related because coordination is seen as a response to problems caused by dependencies. Past studies,
however, describe depaidencies and coordination mechanisms only in general terms, without
characterizing in detail difference between dependencies, the problems dependencies create or how the
proposed coordination mechanisms address those problems. This vagueness makes it difficult or
impossible to determine what alternative coordination mechanisms might be useful in a given
circumstance or to directly translate these alternative designs into specifications of individueil acHvities.

In this paper 1 develop a taxonomy of dependency types by considering possible combinations of
activities using resources. The taxonomy includes task-resource dependencies and three types of task-task
dependencies: shared resources, producer