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Coordination and Convention: The Organization of the Concert World
Author(s) -
Gilmore Samuel
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
symbolic interaction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.874
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1533-8665
pISSN - 0195-6086
DOI - 10.1525/si.1987.10.2.209
Subject(s) - interdependence , convention , focus (optics) , formal organization , sociology , composition (language) , work (physics) , public relations , knowledge management , computer science , political science , social science , engineering , linguistics , philosophy , physics , optics , mechanical engineering
The organization of collaborative work is generally the focus of formal organization researchers. This article examines collaboration organized through an alternative framework, the “social world.” The substantive focus is the concert world, where the interdependent activities of composition and performance are routinely coordinated to produce concerts. Coordination of these activities takes place through musical conventions, which act as an alternative to administrative processes used in formal organization. But the use of conventions vary in the concert world depending on the organizational characteristics of concert collaboration, called “coordination problems”, and the aesthetic interests of participants. The first part of this article develops a model to assess coordination problems in social worlds, and the second part of the article uses the model to analyze collaboration in repertory, academic, and avant‐garde concert activities.