‘breathing’ as a Metaphor for Individual Contributing to Organizational Coordination: a Conceptual Model

This paper introduces human breathing as a metaphor for thinking about individual contributing to organizational coordination. It extends the information processing view commonly found in structure and process based social cognition theories. These theories need extension, as they cannot adequately explain current phenomena like organizational improvisation and breakdowns. Following the canons of metaphorical theory development, the research develops a conceptual model consisting of six principles: (1) breathing as an ongoing activity, (2) breathing connects individuals with their surroundings, (3) breathing is a complex, internal activity, (4) breathing involves multiple aspects of a human, (5) breathing relies on multiple interrelated structures, and it blends structure and process, and (6) breathing is adaptive within bounds. These six principles are compared with findings from current theory, and applied to an example of organizational coordination from a sports match. The paper concludes with its contributions to current theory, and opportunities for future research.