職業としてのコーディネーター

―越境的協働を促すメカニズムの体現者―

抄録

This paper examines the background to the demand for “coordinators” as a profession in Japanese society after the reflexive modernization of the 1990s. Then, it derives the coordination mechanism through a case study of boundary spanning collaboration involving multiple sectors in support of victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake. Based on the case study, coordination can be regarded as the act of reducing the transaction costs involved in resource and knowledge mobilization through four kinds of skills; cultural translation, framing, networking, and organizing. It aims to establish cross-border collaboration in which the resources and knowledge of multiple people and organizations are mobilized and traded. The need to enter commitment relationships with multiple people who have internalized different institutions according to their affiliations has led coordinators to internalize the norm that prohibits self-interest. This norm discourages rational and opportunistic behavior according to one's own direct interests and endorses behavior according to goals set collectively among multiple people and organizations. The broader focus on “coordinators” should also be understood as a response to wicked problems observed in reflexive modernized societies that present difficulty being addressed systematically by hierarchical organizations with accumulated expertise and skills, or being solved by the markets in which they participate.