What is Coordination Theory and How Can It Help Design Cooperative Work Systems S Trse.das l Thomas W. Malone Kevin Crowston CCS TR#1 12 Appears in Proceedings of the Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Los Angeles, California, October, 1990. 1_1 11 What is Coordination Theory andHow Can It Help Design Cooperative Work Systems? Thomas W. Malone and Kevin Crowston Center for Coordination Science (E53-333) Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 02139 It is possible to design cooperative work tools based only on "common sense" and goodintuitions. But the history of technology is replete with examples of good theories greatly aiding the development of useful technology. Where, then, might we look for theories tohelp us design computer-supported cooperative work tools? In this paper, we will describe one possible perspective-the interdisciplinary study of coordination-that focuses, in part, on how people work together now and how they might do so differently with new information technologies. In one sense, there is little that is new about the study of coordination. Many different disciplines--including computer science, sociology, political science, management science, systems theory, economics, linguistics, and psychology--have all dealt, in oneway or another, with fundamental questions about coordination. Furthermore, several previous writers have suggested that theories about coordination are likely to be important for designing cooperative work tools (e.g., Holt8], (Wino86]). We hope to suggest here, however, that the potential for fruitful interdisciplinary connections concerning coordination is much greater than has as yet been widely appreciated. For instance, we believe that fundamentally similar coordination phenomenaarise--unrecognized as such-in many of the fields listed above. Though a single coherent body of theory about coordination does not yet exist, many different disciplines could both contribute to and benefit from more general theories of coordination. Of particular interest to researchers in the field of computer-supported cooperative work is the prospect of drawing on a much richer body of existing and future work in these fields than has previously been suggested. In this paper, we will first describe what we mean by "coordination theory" and give examples of how previous research on computer-supported cooperative work can beinterpreted from this perspective. We will then suggest one way of developing this perspective further by proposing tentative definitions of coordination and analyzing its components in more detail. What is coordination? We all have an intuitive sense of what the word "coordination" means. When we attend a well-run conference, when we watch a winning basketball team, or when we see a smoothly functioning assembly line we may notice how well coordinated the actions of a group of people seem to be. Often, however, good coordination is nearly invisible, andwe sometimes notice coordination most clearly when it is lacking. When we spend hours waiting on an airport runway because the airline can't find a gate for our plane, when the hotel room we thought had been reserved for us is sold out, or when a company fails CSCW~ 90 LI Aod ..OUCOtr 1990CSCW 90 Proceedings repeatedly to capitalize on innovative ideas its researchers develop we may become veryaware of the effects of poor coordination. In order to proceed it is elpful to have a more precise idea of what we mean by"coordination." Appendix A lists a number of definitions that have been suggested for this term. The diversity of the-: definitions illustrates the difficulty of defining coordination, and also the variety c, possible starting points for studying the concept Forour purposes here, however, we believe it is most useful to start with the following "common sense" definition of r t taken from a dictionary [Amer81]: the act cf working together arwmoniosly. We will refer to this as the broad" definitio of cordinaion, and will suggest a morerestrictive "narrow" definition below. It is importnt to note here, however, that we intend for working together "harmoniously" to include conflict as well as cooperation.Even when a group of actors has sng conflicts of interest or belief, they may still produce results that observers would judge to be "good" or "haonious." For example,different groups in a company often compete for budget resources and people, and this competition sometimes contributes to the company's ability to produce useful products. What Is coordination theory? We define coordination theory as a body of principles about how activities can be coordinated, that is, about how actors can work together harmoniously. It is important torealize that there is not yet a coherent body of theory in this domain. However, there are theories, concepts, and results from many different fields that could both contribute to and benefit from the development of such general theories. For instance, it is clear that questions about how people coordinate their activities are central to parts of organization theory, sociology, social psychology, anthropology,linguistics, law, and political science. Important parts of economics and management science also analyze how people can coordinate their work with a special focus on rational ways of allocating resources. Computer science does not deal primarily with people, but different computational processes must certainly "work togetherharmoniously," and as numeous observers have pointed out, certain kinds of interactions among computational processes resemble interactions among people (e.g., [Fox81], [Hewi861], [Hube88], [Mill88], Smit81]). These potential overlaps suggest that coordination theory will be like other interdisciplinary fields that aris from the recognition of commonalities in problems that have previously been considered separately in different fields. For instance, the field of cognitive science grew out of the recognition by researchers in several different fields (e.g., psychology, computer science, and linguistics) that they were dealing separatelywith similar problems: how can information processing systems (people or computers) do things like use language, learn, plan, remember, and solve problems (e.g., see[Gard85, Norm801)? Most observers would agree that progress in the new field has benefitted significantly from emergent cross disciplinary connections, and the paradigmsused have in tun been quite influential in the older fields [Gard85]. In coordination theory, the common problems have to do with coordination: How can overall goals be subdivided into actions? How can actions be as? :-:ed to groups or toindividual actors? How can resources be allocated among differe . actors? How can information be shared among different actors to help achieve the overall goals? In its attempts to find generalizations that apply across disciplines and across levels ofanalysis, coordination theory resembles earlier work on systems theory and cybernetics (e.g., (Beer671, [BoulS6], [Emer69], [ForrSOl, [vonBSO5, [Wien6l]). We are significantly better equipped for the task of identifying and analyzing coordination processes now, SC * r-oc-eig _ III Loeo 1 O.CSCW 90 Froceedftgs however, than systems torists were several decades ago. For instance, new qualitativeanguages from comput ant cogitive scices (such as object inheritance networks andPetri nets) seem especially promising as tools for formalizing "mid-level theories" likeWinograd and Flores' [Wino86] "conversations for action." These qualitative mid-level theories are more specific than e quantitative abstractions of systems theory, but moregeneral than specific case sudies What isn't coortdnation theory? If coordination theory can draw upon so many different fields, is it any more than just the union of these fields? How can we look at a thory and decide whether it is or is not anexample of codinatin theory? While it is certainly not helpful to include everything incoordinaion theory, neither do we think it is essenal to draw sharp boundaries betweenwhat is and is not codinatio theory. Instea, as in cognitive science and many other fields, we think certain characteistic questions and approaches will come to typifycentral examples of coordination theory. For example, theories that apply to only onekind of actor will probably be less important to codination the than theories that can be applied to several kinds of acors. Previous examples of coordinaton theory and CSCW With the definition of coordination theory we have just presented, it is clear that some of the work already done in the field of computer-supported cooperative work can beviewed as examples of the use of coordination theory. Even though these authors did notuse the term "coordination theory," each of the following examples involves using ideas about coordination from other disciplines to help develop cooperative work tools: (1) Holt [Holt88] describes a theoretical language used for designingcoordination tools that is based, in part, on ideas about Petri nets, a formalism widely used in computer science to represent process flows in distributed or parallel systems. This language is part of a larger theortical framework called "coordination mechanics." (2) Winograd and Flores (Flor88l, Wino87], [Wino86]) have developed atheoretical perspective for analyzing group action based heavily on ideasfrom linguistics (e.g., [Sear75]) about different kinds of "speech acts,"such as "requests" and "commitments." This perspective was a primarybasis for designing the Coordinator, a computer tool that helps peoplemake and keep taIck of requests and commitments to each other. (3) Malone [(Malo901 describes how ideas from organization theory aboutflexible organizational sucres called "adhocracies" [Mint79] and ideas from artificial intelligence about "blackboard architectures" for sharinginformation among program modules (Erma80, [Nii861) contributed tothe design of the Information Lens, a system for helping people share information in orpanizations [Malo87]. (4) Conklin & Begeman [Conk88J and Lee [ee90al describe systems to helpgroups of people record the structure of arguments (e.g., positions.arguments, and counterarguments) that are based in part on ideas fromphilosophy and rhetoric about the logical structure of decision-making. (5) Turoff [Turo83] used ideas about prices and markets to suggest acomputer-based system to help people to exchange services within orgamization, Clearly, drawing a line around these examples and calling them "coordination theory" does not, in itself, provide any benefit Nor does using ideas about coordination from CC 90 P edgs- ob __Q5QW 90 Proceedings October 1990 other disciplines provide any guarantee of developing useful cooperative work tools.Nevertheess, we feel that coasdn these examples within the common framework of coordination theory provides two benefits: (1) it suggests that no one of these perspectives is the complete stoy, and (2) it suggests something about how we mightlook for more insights of the sort that many people feed have resulted from these previous examples. In particular, the perspective of coodinaion theory suggest (1) that we should look toprevious work in various discipines for more insights about coordination, (2) that we should attempt to develop frameworks or concepts that will facilitate suchinterdisciplinary transfers, and (3) that we should attempt to develop new concepts and theories focused specifically on the questions of coordination that seem central to building cooperative work tools. In the next section, we will tak a step in this direction. TOWARD A FRAMEWORK FOR COORDINATION THEORY So far, we have claimed that many different disciplines can contribute to our understanding of coordination and that better undersanding of coordination will help build useful cooperative work tools. But is it really sensible to use the term "coordination" in describing all the different kinds of phenomena to which we havealluded? For that matter, is there anything in common among these different phenomena, other than some occasional similarities in terminology? As a first step toward answeringthese questions, we will present in this section ox preliminary efforts toward developing a framework for analyzing coordinatio. This framework is not a "theory of everything," it is only one approach which we have found helpful in seeing the relationships betweendifferent views of coordination. Components of coordination According to our broad definition of coordination above, coordination means "the act ofworking together harmoniously." What does this broad definition of coordination imply? First of all, what does the word "work" imply? The same dictionary defines "work" as "physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something" [Amer81]. Thus there must be one or more actors, performing some activities which are directed toward some ends. In what follows, we will sometimes refer to the ends toward which the activities are directed as goals. By using the word"harmoniously," the definition implies that the activities are not independent. Instead, they must be performed in a way that helps create "pleasing" and avoids "displeasing" outcomes, that is, that achieves the goals. We will refer to these goal-relevantrelationships between the activities as interdependencies. These components and the coordination processes associated with them are summarized in Table 1. (See [Bali86],(Bali81], Barn64;1, [Malo87b], [Malo88], [McGr84], [Mint79] for related decompositions of coordination.) Components of coordination Associated coordination processes Goals Identifying goals Activities Mapping goals to activities(e.g., goal decomposition) Actors Selecting actorsAssigning activities to actors Interdependencies "Managing" interdependencies Table 1. Components do coordination. OSOW 0 re c 1-9OOcotber 1990CSCW 90 Prm*WkV*n~ For example, an automobile manufacturing company might be thought of as having a set of goals (e.g., producing several different lines of automobiles) and a set of actors (e.g.,people) who perform activities that achieve these goals. These activities may have various kinds of intrdependencies such as using the same resources (e.g., an assembly line) or needing to be done in i certain order (e.g., a car must usually be designed before it is built). One use of this set of componen of coordinaion is to help facilitate conceptl transfersbetween disciplines. For insance, elsewhere alo88], we have shown how research in selected areas of economics and artifcial intelligence can be compared in terms of these dimensions. This comparison sugested a novel insight for economic theorists about the imporance of product crti, awell a pic, in coordining resource allocationin markts. Coordination is attrited to a sitation by observers It is important to realize that the actors involved in a situation may or may not all agree on the identification of all these components. Insea one or more of these components may be attributed by an observer in order to analyze the situation in terms of coordination. For instance, we may sometimes analyze everything that happens in amanufacturing division as one "activity", while at other times, we may want to analyze each station on an assembly line as a separate "activity." One very important case of this occurs when the actors have conflicting goals, but wechoose to analyze the results of their behavior in terms of how well it achieves somegoals in which we are interested For instance, even though two designers on a project team may have strongly opposing views about how a product should be designed, we canevaluate their collective behavior in terms of the quality of the final design. Anotherimportant example of conflicting goals occurs in market transactions: All the participants in a market might have the goal of maximizing their own benefits, but we, as observers, can evaluate the market as a coordination mechanism in terms of how well it achieves some global goal such as allocating economic resources to maximize consumer utilities (e.g., [DebrS91). In practice, situations in which actors have at least partly conflicting goals are nearlyuniversal, and mixtures of cooperation and conflict are quite common (e.g., [Cibo87],[Will851, [Sche691). When we analyze the coordination in these situations, we must (at least implicitly) evaluate the actors' collective behavior in terms of how well it achievessome overall goals (which may or may not be held by the actors themselves). A narrow definition of coordination The broad definition of coordination we have been using includes almost everything that happens when actors work together setting goals, selecting actors, and performing all the other activities that need to be done. For some purposes, it is useful to be able tofocus explicitly on the elements that are unique to coordination, that is, on the aspects of "working together harmoniously" that ar not simply part of "working." In our analysis of the broad definition above, the element of coordination that was implied by the word"harmoniously" was interdependencies. Therefore, when we want to focus specifically on the aspects of a situation that are unique to coordination, we will use the followingnarrow definition of coordination: the act of managing interdependencies between activities performed to achieve a goal. OSOW 90 Proceedings tober 1990CSCW 90 Proceedings October 1990 Clearly, many important coordination situations involve multiple actors, and in ourprevious work (e.g., [Malo88), we defined coordination as something that occurs only when multiple actors are involved. Since then, however, we have become convinced that the essential elements of coordination listed above arise whenever multiple, inedepen t activities we performed to achieve goalss-evn if only one actor performs all of them. Klnds of Interdepndence Both our defnitions of coordination give a prominent role to interdependence: If thee is no interdependence, there is nothing to coordinate. There is also a long history in orniztion theory of emphsizing the impotance of interdependence in determining how organizations are structured (e.g., tThom67], [Galb73], (Lawr67], [Pfet78],[Rock89], [Har901). This suggests that one useful way to extend the theory of coordination is to ask what kinds of interdependence between activities are possible andhow different kinds of interdependence can be managed. Our preliminary investigations of this question have led us to believe thatinterdependence between activities can be analyzed in terms of common objects that are involved in some way in both actions. For example, the activities of designing andmanufacturing a part both involve the detailed design of the part: the design activity creates the design and the manufacturing activity uses it. These common objects constrain how each activity is performed. Different patterns of use of the common objects by the activities will result in different kinds of interdependences. For example, the parts can be manufactured only after the design is complete and the actor doing the manufacturing has received a copy. We call this pattern of usage (one task creating an object that is used by others) a prerequisite constraint Ingeneral, the common object may constrain any or all of the activities that use it. In thiscase, for example, it might make sense for a designer to consider the constraints that the manufacturing process places on the design and to create a design that will be easier to manufacture. Table 2 presents a preliminary list of types of interdependencies and coordinationprocesses that can be used to manage them. The table includes both generic kinds of interdependence and specific examples of interdependence that arise in particular situations. We labeled this list "preliminary" because we suspect that there is more structure in the space of kinds of interdependence and processes than is currently reflected in the table. One use of this table (especially the generic parts of it) may be to help show therelationships between previous work in different disciplines. For instance, much of economics is focused on analyzing market mechanisms for resource allocation, and partsof computer science have focused on questions of synchronizing activities to meetsimultaneity constraints. An even more important use of the approach suggested by this table may be to help generate possible alternative ways of co nating in a particular situation. For instance, it may be possible to characterize a situation in rms of the kinds of interdependence itinvolves, and then use a "catalog" of interdepndencies and their associated processes togenerate a set of alternative processes that could be used to manage the interdependencies. This ability to charactize a space of possible coordination processesfor a given set of activities would be useful in understanding how new kinds of coordination tools could lead to new ways of organizing cooperative work. ....... 90 PceIn Ocoe 19...CSCW 90 Proceedings October 1990 Kindr f Interdependence Common object Example f inrdependence in manactin8g Examples of coordination processes for managing interdependence Generic: Prerequisite Output of one Parts must be Ordering activities, activity which is delivered in time to moving information required by the next be used - rom one actvity to the activity next Shared resource Resource required by Two parts installed Allocating resourcesmultiple activities with a common tool Simultaneity Time at which more Intalling two Synchronizing activities than one activity matched parts at the must occur same time Domain-specfic: Manufacturability Part Part designed by Decision-malking (e.g., engineering must be negotiation, appeal tomade by authoity) manufacturing Customer relations Customer Both field service Information sharing and sales personnel (e.g., sharing problem deal with same reports) customer Tabl 2. Preliminary examples of kinds of interdependence. Example: Coordinating interdependencies between design and manufacturing This example illustrates how knowing the intrdependencies in a situation may suggestalternative ways to manage them. The example is based, in part, on extended field studies of engineering change processes in several manufacturing organizations[Crow901. In the case of design and manufacturing, an important kind ofinterdependence results from the common object that is the design of the product to bemanucred One simple way technology can help manage these interdependencies is simply byhelping to detect them in the first place. For instance, one of the applications we have investigated for the Information Lens and Object Lens systems (Lai88], [Malo87]) is routing engineering change notices to engineers to whose work is likely be be affected by a given change, even when the person making the change does not know who else it will affect. Whether all the interdependencies are recognized or not, there seem to be at least four basic ways to manage them: (1) At a minimum, the designer must create a design and give it to the manufacturerto build. One simple effect of CAD systems, for example, is to make this transfer process easier. CSCW 90 Proceedings oCtoXr 1990 L/r .. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . ? 1~~~~~~~---- 4 (2) The designer and the manufaturer can negotiate what the design should be, forexample, by iterating the design process or in joint meetings. A variety of elecronic meeting support and communication tools could help this process andcould make it more desirable relative to alternative ways of managing the same infdepenlencim (3) Sometimes the need for explicit negotiation can be eliminated by moving some of the knowledge about the constraints of either task from one engineer toanother. For instance: (a) Some of the manufacturer's knowledge (the knowledge about the manufacturing consainuts, not about bow to do the manufacturing) can be made available to the designer, for eample, by training the designer in methodologies such as design for manufacturing or by embodying the knowledge in an intelligent CAD system. (b) Some of the designer's knowledge can be transfered to the manufacturer.For example, if a system like gIBIS [Conk88] is used to capture more of the designer's intent as well as the details of the part, the manufacturing engineer might be able to change some details of the design to make theparts easier to build while preserving the intenL (4) A third party, such as a common superior, may be able to resolve problems asthey arise or to give enough initial direction that problems do not arise. This analysis seems to be easily transferred to other domains. For example, a bank and a potential borrower have to agree on a common object, a loan. The typical approach seems to be case (1) above: the bank offers a loan with its standard terms and a person who wants the loan takes it or leaves it. In some cases, the bank and the borrower negotiate the details of the loan, case (2) above. Finally, one can imagine transferring some of the bank's knowledge about making loans, for example, to a computer program that a potential borrower could run to explore possible loan conditions (case (3a)), or to a third party who would suggest which bank would be best for a given applicant (case (4)). Procossa underlying coordination In attempting to characterize more precisely different coordination processes, we have found it useful to describe them in terms of successively deeper levels of underlying processes, each of which depends on the levels below it. Table 3 shows a preliminary diagram of the levels we have used. For instance, most of the coordination processes listed in the last column of Table 2 require that some decision be made and accepted by a group (e.g., what goal will be selected or which actors will perform which activities). Group decisions, in turn, require members of the group to communicate in some formabout the goals to be achieved, the alternatives being considered, the evaluations of thesealternatives, and the choices that are made. This communication requires that some form of "messages" be transported from senders to receivers in a language that isunderstandable to both. Finally, the establishment of this common language and the transportation of messages depends, ultimately, on the ability of actors to perceivecommon objects such as physical objects in a shared situation or information in a shared database (e.g., see [Such87]). These layers are analogous to abstraction levels in othersystems, such as protocol layers for network communications. Even though the strongest dependencies appear to be downward through these layers, there are also times when one layer will use processes from the layers above it. Forinstance, a group may sometimes use decision-making processes to extend the common language it uses to communicate (e.g, see [(Lee9b]), or a group may use coordination processes to assign decision-making activities to actors. _ _CSCW 90 Proceeding October 1990 Coordination goals activities actors, identifying goals, ordering activities, reIamea, assigning activities to actors, allocatinginterdedencies eamaces, synchronizing activities Group decision- goals, actoran, proposing aternatives, evaluating making altanatives, evaluations, altrnatives, making choices (e.g., by choices authority, consensu or voting) Communication sender receives, establishing common languages, messages, languages selecting receiver (routing), transporting message (delivering) Perception of acto, objects seeing same physical objects, accessingcommon objects shared databases Table 3. Processe underdying coordination. Example : Selecting actors to perform activities To see how this framework can be used to analyze coordination processes, let us consider the part of the activity assignment process that involves selecting which actors willperfonn which activities. For this example, we will analyze one particular method that can be used for this process: a competitive bidding scheme like that used in many kindsof markets. Our analysis will draw upon the version of this process formalized by Smithand Davis [Smit81 and extended by Malone ([Malo87b], (Malo88]). In this scheme, a client first broadcasts an announcement message to all potential contractors. This message includes a description of the activity to be performed and the qualifications required of potential contractors. The potential contractors then use thisinformation to decide whether to submit a bid on the action. If they decide to bid, theirbid message includes a description of their qualifications and their availability forperforming the action. The client uses these bid messages to decide which contractor should perform the activity and then sends an award message to notify the contractor that has been selected. In this case, the decision to be made is which contractor will perform a specific action.The choice results from a multi-stage process in which contractors decide whether to propose themselves as alternatives (by submitting bids) and clients decide which contractor to select based on their evaluations of the contractors' bids. The actorscommunicate by exchanging messages, and we can regard these messages as including representations of common objects (such as activities and bids) which both senders and receivers can perceive. Viewing the activity assignment process in this way, immediately suggests other possibilities for how it can be performed. For instance, an authority-based decision-making process might be used in which a manager simply assigns activities to peoplewho have implicitly already agreed to accept such assignments. This view also suggestshow computer tools could be used to support a bidding process for task assignments inhuman organizations (e.g., see [Malo87a], Turo83]). 'W' .. o. .. ' , . Process Level Compocnnu Ejampis of Generic Pocesses osuw 90 I-roce"Iiygs Odtober 1990 CONCLUSIONS In this paper, we have argued that many different disciplines can contribute to our understanding of coordiatio and that a better nderstanding of coordination can help usbuild useful cooperave work tools. In order to support these claims, we have shown examples of interdisciplinary transfers of ideas about coordinati that have already prm ded usefUl insights for cooperative work tools, and we ha tketched out the begings of a framework that can fcilitat such inlrdisciplinary ransfers and lead tothe development of new general theories about coordination. Clearly ther is much left to be done. We hope, however. hat the perspective we havesuggested here will help build tools that enable people to , . together more effectively and more enjoyably. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was supported, in part, by Digital Equipment Corporation, the NationalScience Foundation (Grant Nos. IRI-8805798 and IRI-8903034), the MIT IntenationalFinancial Services Research Center, and General Motors/Elecmnic Data Systems. Parts of this paper were included in a previous working paper [Malo88] and in proposals submitted to the National Science Foundation. We are especially grateful to Deborah Ancona, John Carroll, Michael Cohen, Randall Davis, John !. le, and Wanda Orlikowskifor comments on earier versions of the paper, and to parm p.ants in numerous seminars and workshops at which these ideas have been presented. APPENDIX: PREVIOUSLY SUGGESTED DEFINITIONS OF COORDINATION '"The operation of complex systems made up of components." [NSF89] 'The emergent behavior of collections of individuals whose actions are based on complex decision processes." NSF89] "Information processing within a system of communicating entities with distinct informnnation states." [NSF89] "The joint efforts of independent communicating actors towards mutually defined goals." [NSF89] "Networks of human action and commitments that are enabled by computer and communications technologies." NSF89] "Composing purposeful actions into larger purposeful wholes." Holt89] "Activities required to maintain consistency within a work product or to managedependencies within the workflow." [Curt891 "'The additional information processing performed when multiple, connected actors pursue goals that a single actor pursuing the same goals would not perform." [Malo88] .... 9 0 '~ P o e n O c o e 1 9 9 0CSCW 90 Proceedings October 1990 REFERENCES [Amer81] American Heritage Dictionary. Bosto: Houghton Mifflin, 1981. [Ba li86 Baligh, H. H. Decision rules d uo, organizatios and markets. Management Science, 32, 1480-1491, 1986. [Bali81] Baligh, H. H., Burton, R. M. Describing and designing organizational structures ud proces lnterational Journal f Policy Analysis and Information Systru, , .251-266, 1981. (Bar64] Barnard C. L The Functions of the Ecutive. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1964. [Bee67] Beer, S. Cybernetics and Management (2nd ed.). London: English Universities Pess 1967. [Boul561 Boulding, K. E. The Image. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 1956. [Cibo87] Ciborra, C. U. Refrainming the role of computers in organizations: The transaction costs approach. Office Technology and People, 3, 17-38, 1987. [Conk88] Conklin, J., Begeman, M. L. gIBIS: A hypertext tooling for exploratorypolicy discussion. In Tatar, D. (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Computer-supported Cooperative Work (pp. 140-152). New York: ACM,1988. [Crow901 Crowston, K. Modeling Coordination in Organizations. Ph.D.Dissertation, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Forthcoming (1990). [Curt89] Curtis, B. Modeling coordination from field experiments. In Organizational Computing, Coordination and Collaboration: Theories and Technologiesfor Comput-Supported Work. Austin, TX, 1989. [Debr59] Debreu, G. Theory of value: An axiomatic analysis of economicequilibrium. New York: Wiley, 1959. [Emet69] Emery, J. C. Organizational Planning and Control Systems: Theory andTechnology. New York: MacMillan, 1969. [Erma80] Erman, L. D., Hayes-Roth, F., Lesser, V. R., Reddy, D. R. TheHEARSAY-II speech understanding system: Integrating knowledge to resolve uncertainty. Computing Surveys, 12(2), 213-253, 1980. [For88] Flores, F., Graves, M., Hartfield, B., Winograd, T. Computer systems andthe design of organizational interaction. ACM Transactions on Office Information Systemr, 6(2), 153-172, 1988. [Forr80] Forrester, J. W. Systems dynamics. New York: North-Holland, 1980. (Fox81] Fox, M. S. An organizational view of distributed systems. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, 11(1), 70-79, 1981. [Galb73] Galbraith, J. R. Designing Complex Organizations. Reading, MA:Addison-Wesley, 1973. C _ ro _ d ... 1Oc00W 1990CSCW 90 Proceeding [Gard85] Gardner, D. The Mind's New Science: A History of the CognitiveRevolution. New York: Basic, 1985. tHart9] Hart P. & Estin, D. Inter-organization computer networks: Indications ofshifts in intelardepedece Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Office Information Sys, Cam e, MA, April 25-27, 1990. (Hewi86 Hewitt C. Offices ame open systems. ACM Transactions on Office Systems, 4(3), 271-287, 1986. [Holt89] Holt, A. Personal communication., 1989. [Holt881 Holt, A. W. Diplans: A new language for the study and implementation ofcoordination. ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems, 6(2), 109- 125, 1988. Hube88] Huberman, B. A. (Eds.). The Ecology of Computation . Amsterdam:North-Holland, 1988. [Kon81] Kornfeld, W. A., Hewitt, C. The scientific community metaphor. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, SMC-11, 24-33, 1981. [ILai88] Lai, K. Y., Malone, T., Yu, K.-C. Object Lens: A spreadsheet for cooperative work. ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems, (Oct), 1988. [Lawr67] Lawrence, P. R. & Lorsch, J. W. Organization and Environment. Boston:Graduate School of Business Adminsitration, Harvard University, 1967. [Lee90a] Lee, J. Sibyl: A qualitative decision management system. In Winston, P. (Ed.), Artifcial Intelligence at MIT: Expanding Frontiers Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990. (Lee90b] Lee, J., Malone, T. W. Partially Shared Views: A scheme for communicating among groups that use different type hierarchies. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 8, 1-26, 1990. [Malo87a] Malone, T. W. Computer support for organizations: Towards an organizational science. In Carroll, J. (Ed.), Interfacing Thought: Cognitive Aspects of Human Computer Interactions Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987. Malo87b] Malone, T. W. Modeling coordination in organizations and markets.Management Science, 33, 1317-1332, 1987. [Malo88a] Malone, T. W. What is coordination theory? (Working paper #2051-88). Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, 1988. [Malo90] Malone, T. W. Organizing information processing systems: Parallels between organizations and computer systems. In Zachary, W., Robertson, S., Black, J. (Ed.), Cognition, Computation. and Cooperation (pp. 56-83). Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1990. [Malo87c] Malone, T. W., Grant, K. R., Turbak, F. A., Brobst, S. A., Cohen, M. D. Intelligent information-sharing systems. Communications of the ACM, 30, 390-402, 1987. CSCW 90 Proceedings October 1990 III [Mao88b] Malone, T. W., Smith, S. A. Modeling the performance of organizationalstructnaas. Opertioo ReCearch, 36(3), 421-436, 1988. [McG4] McGrath, J. E Group: Intraction and Performance. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticHal, 1984. [Mill88] Miller, M. S., Drexla, K. E. Markets and computation: Agoric opensystems. In Huberman, B. A. (Ed.), The Eology of Compuation (pp. 133- 176). Amsdam North-Holnd, 1988. [Mins87] Minsky, M. The Society of the Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster,1987. Mint79] Mintzberg, H. The Structuring of Organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:PrenticeHall, 1979. [Nii86] Nii, P. The blackboard model of problem solving. The AI Magazine,(Spring), 38-53, 1986. INcrm80] Norman, D. A. Twelve issa for cognitive science. Cognidve Science, 4,1-32, 1980. (NSF89] NSF-IRIS. A report by the NSF-IRIS Review Panel for Research on Coordination Theory and Technology. Available from NSF Forms & Publications Unit, 1989. [Pfef78] Pfeffer, J. & Salancik, G. R. The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependency Perspective. New York: Harper & Row, 1978. [Sche60] Schelling, T. C. Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960. [Sear75] Searle, J. R. A taxonomy of illocutionary acts. In Gunderson, K. (Ed.), Language, Mind and Knowledge (pp. 344-369). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 1975. (Rock89] Rockart, J. F. & Short, J. E. IT and the networked organization: Towardmore effective management of interdependence. In M. S. Scott Morton (Ed.), Management in the 1990s Research Program Final Report.Cambridge, MA: Massachuse Institute of Technology, 1989. [Smit81] Smith, R. G., Davis, R. Frameworks for coopeation in distributed problem solving. IEEE Transactions on Systems. Man and Cybernetics, 11(1), 61- 70, 1981. [Such87] Suchman, L. A. Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of HumanMachine Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. [Tlom67] Thompson, J. D. Organizations in Action. New York: McGraw-Hill,1967. [Turo83] Turoff, M. Information. value, and the internal marketplace (Unpublishedmanuscript). New Jersey Institute of Technology, 1983. [vonB50] von Bertalanffy, L. The theory of open systems in physics and biology. Science, 111, 1950. -~o? t'oeemg i xtoar i -~ucsQYV 90 Proceedings LCm f 1990 Ill [Wie61] Wiener, N. Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Prss, 1961. (Will85] Williamson, 0. The Economic Injuimtions o Capitalism. New York: Free Prss, 1985. [WinoE87 Winogrd, T. A language/acio perspective on the design of cooperative work. Human Computer Interaction, 3, 3-30, 1987. (Wino86] Winograd, T., Flores, F. Understanding computers and cognition: A new fowunationfor design. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1986. CSCW 90 Proceedings I d 1%%UPtVL lwv