Raymond A. Mason School of Business Events

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Alan B. Miller Hall (Business School), Room 3059
101 Ukrop Way
Williamsburg, VA 23185Map this location

The current paper suggests a scripts-based model of group coordination. We propose that scripts--a specialized form of cognitive schema--are the cognitive representation of coordinated action. We identify five elements of scripts for coordinated action and show how they function together to produce coordination. Furthermore, we show how this formulation provides a seamless link to more general structurationist work that portrays scripts as pivots between institutions and action. This enables us to offer a unifying framework within which to locate and extend recent work concerning the enactment of coordinating mechanisms, together with more specification of the larger coordinating principles. Taking advantage of the fact that scripts are cognitive schema, we also tie our work into recent research concerning the operation of neural networks to help explain why coordination expectations can be resilient to change. Our approach is particularly relevant for teamwork that rests outside the comfortable confines of shared national and organizational culture. We focus our examples on the case of global teamwork, explaining why and how differences in coordination expectations are likely to occur. Our approach could help predict or diagnose coordination failures in global teams, trace adaptation processes and contribute to training.