Identifying and revising outdated theoretical assumptions and metaphors is crucial to build new theory about emerging digitally-enabled coordination phenomena. Based on an extensive review of the extant coordination literature, however, we find that the majority of published manuscripts in top IS and management journals has adopted the well-known and understood (by authors, editors and reviewers alike) strategies of “gap-spotting”, i.e., pointing at gaps in knowledge, and/or “theory-borrowing”, i.e., borrowing unfamiliar theories from a different discipline, to construct and legitimize contributions. Hardly any manuscript has systematically used a problematization strategy, i.e. a theory-building strategy that focuses on explicating and revising underlying theoretical assumptions. To improve the explicit and systematic use of problematization, we do two things. First, we distinguish between phenomenon-driven and theory-driven problematization and hence outline options for how researchers could adopt the former. Second, we explicitly problematize the extant coordination literature. We show that, in contrast to its alternatives, problematization helps coordination researchers identify and address the limits of existing theoretical metaphors, which are dominant in the literature.

识别和修改过时的理论假设和隐喻对于建立有关新兴的数字化协调现象的新理论至关重要。然而，基于对现有协调文献的广泛回顾，我们发现，在顶级IS和管理期刊上出版的大多数手稿都采用了众所周知的（被作者，编辑和审稿人一致）的“差距发现”策略。 ”，即指出知识的差距，和/或“借用理论”，即借用不同学科的不熟悉的理论来构造和合法化贡献。几乎任何手稿都没有系统地使用问题化策略，即着重于阐明和修改基本理论假设的理论构建策略。为了改善对问题化的明确和系统的使用，我们做两件事。首先，我们区分现象驱动型问题和理论驱动型问题，因此概述了研究人员如何采用前者。其次，我们明确质疑现有的协调文献。我们表明，与其替代方案相比，问题化有助于协调研究人员确定和解决现有理论隐喻的局限，这些隐喻在文献中占主导地位。