Coordination of activities in many settings can be characterized by management of conflicts, potential and actual, because of resource limitations, high-stakes consequences, uncertainty, goal conflicts among stakeholders and hetero-hierarchical organizational structures. To understand coordination in such systems, we conducted a field study of management of surgical operating rooms. Although coordination efforts were focused on resolution of interdependencies, such as progress monitoring, scheduling and rescheduling, and prodding, coordinators managed a set of complicated conflicts, often through opportunistic means. They were very sensitive to potential conflicts, and used many different means to resolve the conflicts as reported in the literature. Additionally, they were very concerned with perceived fairness. The findings have direct implications to the deployment of information technology as it will change accuracy of information, barriers to access and means of information dissemination.
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