Interrelated technical and institutional coordination: the case of network infrastructures

The literature barely addresses the interrelated coordination of technical processes and economic transactions. Yet it is a prominent issue, especially for network infrastructures, which are currently undergoing fundamental technological and institutional changes. Important drivers include advances in information and communication technology (ICT) and ongoing institutional restructuring, allowing for modularization of services and competition between providers. Three areas of research are proposed. First is the identification of different interrelations between technical features of network infrastructures and corresponding rules and rights at different levels of analysis. A second issue is the relation between the performance of network infrastructures and its technical and institutional coordination. Third, research is needed on the normative assessment of different technological and institutional coordination arrangements, which will contribute to discussions of the social acceptance and acceptability of the changes in network infrastructures.