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 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. © 2014 Decision Sciences Institute.