Loosely coupled systems

Orton, J. D., & Weick, K. E. (1990). Loosely coupled systems: A reconceptualization. Academy of Management Review, 15(2), 203-223.

Type

Journal article

Intellectual base

Primary research

Year

1990

DOI

10.5465/amr.1990.4308154

Link

https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1990.4308154

Cited from

economics_finance, organizational_management, systems_cybernetics

Cited by

7 citations across 7 artifacts.

Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.

Primes

• Coordination

  • This sourceReconceptualizes loose coupling as a dialectic of responsiveness and distinctiveness; relevant to the coordination tradeoff between autonomy and integration.

• Coupling
  • The essential commitment is that coupling is a property of the interaction structure, not of either subsystem alone: it is the channel through which state in one becomes input to another, and its degree — from fully decoupled (independent) through loosely coupled (influence exists but is weak or delayed) to tightly coupled (variables are effectively a single system)

    This sourceReconceptualizes loose coupling as a dialectical concept (both coupled and distinct), establishing the tight-vs-loose spectrum and modularity/integration trade-off; supports the spectrum, modularity-as-decoupling, not-identity, and not-modularity's-opposite claims.

• Division of Labor
  • Listed in the references but not attached to a specific claim.
• Environmental Coupling Strength
  • Listed in the references but not attached to a specific claim.
• Layered Coordination & Oversight
  • Listed in the references but not attached to a specific claim.
• Oversight Capacity
  • Listed in the references but not attached to a specific claim.
• Systemic Fragmentation
  • The autonomous-practice divergence where each sub-system develops distinct methodologies, data schemas, processes, or standards without systematic alignment across boundaries

Verification

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