Life in the Trading Zone: Structuring Coordination Across Boundaries in Postbureaucratic Organizations

In our study of an interactive marketing organization, we examine how members of different communities perform boundary-spanning coordination work in conditions of high speed, uncertainty, and rapid change. We find that members engage in a number of cross-boundary coordination practices that make their work visible and legible to each other, and that enable ongoing revision and alignment. Drawing on the notion of a “trading zone,” we suggest that by engaging in these practices, members enact a coordination structure that affords cross-boundary coordination while facilitating adaptability, speed, and learning. We also find that these coordination practices do not eliminate jurisdictional conflicts, and often generate problematic consequences such as the privileging of speed over quality, suppression of difference, loss of comprehension, misinterpretation and ambiguity, rework, and temporal pressure. After discussing our empirical findings, we explore their implications for organizations attempting to operate in the uncertain and rapidly changing contexts of postbureaucratic work.