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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Jas KalraORCiD
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Emerald Publishing Limited, 2021.
For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.
https://doi.org/10.1108/SCM-03-2019-0115PurposeThis paper aims to investigate governance in service triads, specifically studying significant steering and connecting coordination failures, to reveal typically hidden characteristics and consequences.Design/methodology/approachThis study focuses on coordination functions and activities between a buyer (a government department), a customer (a military service) and two service providers. Rich data on these normally confidential service ties are drawn from an official report into the causes of a fatal accident involving a UK reconnaissance aircraft and specifically from the evidence presented regarding the earlier development of its complex safety case. The authors also analysed a range of additional secondary data sources.FindingsThe authors examine the sources, drivers and manifestation of coordination failures. The authors uncover a series of coordination failures driven from the bridge position, revealing that while bounded rationality and opportunism influenced steering coordination failures, connecting coordination failures were associated with knowledge asymmetry, dyadic inertia and unethical practices.Practical implicationsOrganisations and governments delivering complex projects and knowledge-intensive professional services should guard against outsourcing the “coordination” activity to a third party, thereby relinquishing the bridge position. Handing over the bridge position to an integrator would leave the client vulnerable to coordination dysfunctions such as bounded rationality, opportunism, knowledge asymmetry, dyadic inertia and unethical practices.Originality/valueThe study links the previously separate research streams of service triads and inter-organizational coordination. While extant research pays attention to mainly positive control functions, this study focuses on all three actors in two (failed) service triads – and highlights the impact of coordination activities and failures.
Author(s): Kalra J, Lewis MA, Roehrich JK
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Supply Chain Management
Year: 2021
Volume: 26
Issue: 3
Pages: 341-358
Print publication date: 03/05/2021
Online publication date: 18/12/2020
Acceptance date: 17/08/2020
Date deposited: 11/05/2021
ISSN (print): 1359-8546
ISSN (electronic): 1758-6852
Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
URL: https://doi.org/10.1108/SCM-03-2019-0115
DOI: 10.1108/SCM-03-2019-0115
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