Management Theory for the Sake Of Logistics: Main Approaches to The Intra-Organizational Coordination and Conflict Management
MAGAZINE №5 (76) October 2016
AUTHOR VINOGRADOV A.B.
CATEGORY Logistic integration and coordination
ABSTRACT
The article embraces the study of the major approaches to coordination and intra-organizational conflict management in the management theory. The purpose of the study is to raise efficiency and effectiveness of the logistics coordination. Foreign sources as well as the results of the author’s own empirical research, employing methods of questionnaire survey and statistical data analysis, prove that the issues of interfunctional coordination are of high importance for the absolute majority of business organizations. One of the main reasons for that lies in the dominance of the linear-functional type of organizational structure featuring artificial barriers between the company departments. The author reviews standpoints of the representatives of the classical management theory, human-relations school, systems and contingency theories. With regard to each school the paper exams priority means of interfunctional coordination along with the major strategies for interdepartmental conflict management. Based on the research and application of the comparative analysis method, the author suggests systematization of the approaches to interfucntional logistics coordination and outlines respective coordination mechanisms (means of hierarchy, horizontal communication, standardization of the processes, their results, skills and competencies as well as norms and values). The article reveals a number of contingency factors that influence the selection of interfunctional logistics coordination mechanisms along with the choice of appropriate strategy for the organizational conflict management. The author proves the effectiveness of «compromise» and «cooperation» strategies in tackling interfunctional logistics conflicts and describes major conditions of their choice. The paper finally shows that coordination tools and ways of settling conflicts developed in the theory of management can be applied to solve logistics issues in organizations of various business environment.
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