Differentiation and Integration in Complex Organizations

The Governance and Management of Effective Community Health Partnerships: A Typology for Research, Policy, and Practice

“…Consistent with existing literature (Lawrence and Lorsch 1967;Van de Ven and Koenig 1976;Shortell, Gillies, Anderson, et al 2000), integration refers to mechanisms of coordination used to achieve partnership objectives. There are three major mechanisms: ownership; contractual relations or alliances; and informal interactions characterized by norms of trust and reciprocity.…”

“…The concept of differentiation, which was originally developed by Lawrence and Lorsch (1967), refers to the number of different activities, services, goals, and orientations in which a partnership is engaged. In the context of a CHP, differentiation refers to several aspects, including the number and types of services it provides and its mix of resources and funding.…”

“…Underlying them is the suggestion put forth by resource dependency theory that external alignment is most clearly related to the partnership's ability to obtain needed resources (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978;Aldrich 1979). Structural contingency theory would link internal alignment most closely with the ability to use those resources effectively and efficiently in achieving the partnership's objectives (Lawrence and Lorsch 1967;Donaldson and Preston 1995), which is also compatible with the resource capabilities perspective (Foss 1997). Further, centrality, in line with social network theory, is assumed to be most integral to the ability of the partnership to achieve legitimacy and social capital (Nohria and Eccles 1992;Uzzi 1996;Burt 1997), a view that institutional theory would support as well (Powell and DiMaggio 1991;Scott 1994).…”

Why Information Should Influence Productivity

“…Contingency and coordination theorists consider the properties of specific coordination strategies by identifying and analyzing tradeoffs that arise in managing the handoffs or interdependencies between activities (Lawrence and Lorsch 1967;Thompson 1967;Galbraith 1973;Malone and Crowston 1994); while knowledge and resource-based theorists argue that the difficulty of replicating tacit aspects of coordination generates sustainable advantages in efficiency (Kogut and Zander 1992;Conner and Prahalad 1996;Kogut and Zander 1996;Barney 2001). Stated formally as a hypothesis,…”

Implementing Interorganizational Cooperation in Labour Market Reintegration: A Case Study

“…While this differentiation may be considered a way to manage a complex environment [7], there is a risk that responsibility becomes fragmented, which may imply efficiency and quality problems [8]. Further, in attempts at interorganizational cooperation or integration in the rehabilitation field, organizational self-interest and low trust have been shown to threaten the development and sustainability of the cooperative initiatives [9][10][11][12].…”