Looking Inside Glitch Mitigation Capability: The Effect of Intraorganizational Communication Channels

ABSTRACT Manufacturers can reduce the occurrence of glitches in their operations by building capabilities to prevent them, yet mitigation capabilities are also needed to contain the effects of the glitches that will still inevitably occur every now and then. We examine the glitch mitigation capabili...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Decision sciences 2014-06, Vol.45 (3), p.437-466
Main Authors: Tenhiälä, Antti, Salvador, Fabrizio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Channels
Communication channels
Communication Infrastructure
Communications technology
Construction
Decision making
Decision theory
Economic behaviour
Field Studies
Glitches
Hypotheses
Hypothesis
Manufacturing/Shop Floor Control Systems
Operations Management-Information Systems Interface
Operations research
Organizational Theory
Production management
Qualitative analysis
Recognition
Regularity
Resilience
Samples
Statistical analysis
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Summary:ABSTRACT Manufacturers can reduce the occurrence of glitches in their operations by building capabilities to prevent them, yet mitigation capabilities are also needed to contain the effects of the glitches that will still inevitably occur every now and then. We examine the glitch mitigation capability of a production process from an information‐processing perspective and propose that (i) the impact of operational glitches on delivery performance is contingent on the formalization of intrafirm communication channels and (ii) this effect is stronger when formal communication channels are complemented with informal channels. We test our model in a sample of 163 make‐to‐order production processes and find support for the first hypothesis and partial support for the second hypothesis. The statistical analyses also reveal nonhypothesized empirical regularities, which we explore through an additional qualitative study based on 34 site visits and 30 interviews with production planners. The results have practical implications for the design of intraorganizational communication channels, and they also contribute to the research on organizational resilience and communications by showing that when coping with disruptions, the formal communication channels have advantages that are seldom discussed in the literature or recognized by practitioners.
ISSN:0011-7315
1540-5915
DOI:10.1111/deci.12076