Implementing Operations Strategy: How Vertical and Horizontal Coordination Interact

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Sting, Fabian J.; Loch, Christoph H.
• 署名单位: Erasmus University Rotterdam; Erasmus University Rotterdam - Excl Erasmus MC; University of Cambridge
• 刊物名称: PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1059-1478
• DOI: 10.1111/poms.12537
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 1177-1193
• 关键词: search; COORDINATION; operations strategy; frontline innovation

摘要

We study the implementation of operations strategy at six German manufacturers in mature businesses. Search theory argues that vertical coordination (i.e., unilateral top-down adjustment of lower-level search actions) balances stability against the improvement potential enabled by frontline search and also that horizontal coordination (i.e., bilateral adjustment among lower-level search actions) is required to ensure compatibility among the initiatives generated in various organizational subunits. Much less is known about how vertical and horizontal coordination interact in operations strategy implementationthat is the focus of this study. We first study how horizontal and vertical coordination affect the compatibility and creativity of distributed search, triangulating our cross-level interviews with data on the manufacturers' productivity gains and their strategic projects. We then examine whether and how vertical and horizontal coordination interact. Our case comparisons suggest that leaving either one of them loose and keeping the other one tight results in a useful balance between compatibility and creativity; in contrast, tightening both types of coordination suppresses creativity and loosening both types risks incompatibility of initiatives across units. These results lead to a theoretical framework that identifies vertical and horizontal coordination as partial substitutes for operations strategy implementation.