Research Database

The Relational Coordination Research Database aims to summarize all evidence about how stakeholders can achieve desired outcomes by strengthening relational coordination, published by researchers who have tested some aspect of the Relational Model of Organizational Change.  This database will help researchers and practitioners to understand what works, what does not work - and where additional innovation and research are most needed.  

Research Foundations for the Relational Model of Change (starting with most recent)

Please write to relationalcoord@brandeis.edu with additional publications to post here.

• Anderson, A. J., Noyes, K., & Smith, S. D. (2026). Social network analysis and relational coordination: Empowering nurse administrators leading care coordination teams to assess improvement opportunities. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 56(2), 86-91.
• Olive, M. V., Gastaldi, L., & Appio, F. P. (2026). Relational coordination in medical work: The role of digital health practices. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 224, 124508.
• Bond, B. & Gebo, E. (2025). Exploring the relational model of change as a facilitator of interorganizational change.  The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science.
• Gomes, P. J., & Mirzaei, T. (2025). Evolving dynamics of relational coordination: A study of progression of care huddles in hospital observation services. Medical Care Research and Review, 82(1), 88-99.
• Hajjar, L., Olaleye, O., Yang, J., McGirr, S., & Sullivan, E. E. (2025). Relational coordination and team‐based care: Change initiative overload and other challenges in a learning health system. Learning Health Systems, e10455.
• McLean, D., Connor, M., Marshall, A. P., McMurray, A., & Jones, L. (2025). Illuminating power dynamics that influenced a relational coordination program in a tertiary hospital: An institutional ethnography study. Health Care Management Review, 50(1), 23-31.
• McLean, D. (2025).  How Ruling Relations Shaped the Implementation of a Relational Coordination Program in a Large Australian Public Hospital.  Griffith University, School of Nursing and Midwifery.
• Grøn, A.B., Hvilsted, L., Ingerslev, K., Jacobsen, C., Bech, M. & Holm-Petersen, C. (2024). Can leadership improve interorganizational collaboration? Field-experimental evidence from a team-based leadership training intervention. The American Review of Public Administration.
• Kragen, B. (2024). Impact of Secure Messaging on Health Equity, Care Coordination, and Diabetes Outcomes. Brandeis University, The Heller School for Social Policy and Management.
• Hajjar, L., Gittell, J. H., Stephens, J. P., Meier, N., & Cutcher Gershenfeld, J. (2024). Seeing the whole together through relational mapping: A method for engaging in complex systems change. The American Review of Public Administration.
• Spitzer, E. G., Kaitz, J., Fix, G. M., Harvey, K. L., Stadnick, N. A., Sullivan, J. L., ... & Miller, C. J. (2023). Developing relational coordination: A qualitative study of outpatient mental health teams. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 50(4), 591-602.
• van Staalduinen, D. J., van den Bekerom, P. E., Groeneveld, S. M., Stiggelbout, A. M., & van den Akker-van, M. E. (2023). Relational coordination in value-based health care. Health Care Management Review, 48(4), 334-341.
• Bolton, R. E. (2023). The Whole Is Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts: How Implementing Whole Person Healthcare Systems Improves Uptake of Nonpharmacologic Therapies Among Patients With Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain. Brandeis University, The Heller School for Social Policy and Management.
• Brazil, V., McLean, D., Lowe, B., Kordich, L., Cullen, D., De Araujo, V., ... & Purdy, E. (2022). A relational approach to improving interprofessional teamwork in post-partum haemorrhage. BMC Health Services Research, 22(1), 1108.
• Gebo, E., & Bond, B. J. (2022). Improving interorganizational collaborations: An application in a violence reduction context. The Social Science Journal, 59(2), 318-329.
• Olaleye, O. E. (2022). Team-Based Care, Relational Coordination and Worker Outcomes: The Role of Frontline Workers.  Brandeis University, The Heller School for Social Policy and Management.
• Bolton, R., Logan, C., & Gittell, J. H. (2021). Revisiting relational coordination: A systematic review. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 57(3), 290-322.
• Thygeson, N. M., Logan, C., Lindberg, C., Potts, J., Suchman, A., Merchant, R., & Thompson, R. (2021). Relational interventions for organizational learning: An experience report. Learning Health Systems, 5(3).
• Purdy, E., Alexander, C., Shaw, R., & Brazil, V. (2020). The team briefing: Setting up relational coordination for your resuscitation. Clinical and Experimental Emergency Medicine, 7(1), 1.
• Purdy, E. I., McLean, D., Alexander, C., Scott, M., Donohue, A., Campbell, D., ... & Brazil, V. (2020). Doing our work better, together: A relationship-based approach to defining the quality improvement agenda in trauma care. BMJ Open Quality, 9(1), e000749.
• Brazil, V., Purdy, E., Alexander, C., & Matulich, J. (2019). Improving the relational aspects of trauma care through translational simulation. Advances in Simulation, 4, 1-10.
• Best, J. (2017). Factors and Processes Underlying Increases of Relational Coordination in Task-Coordinating Groups. Saybrook University, Organizational Systems.
• Gittell, J. H. & Storch, J. (2016).  Building a relational public sector. Stanford Social Innovation Review.  October 4.
• Gittell, J. H. (2016).  The relational model of organizational change.  Transforming Relationships for High Performance: The Power of Relational Coordination.  Stanford University Press. 
• Gittell, J. H. (2016).  Relational coordination at Group Health.  Transforming Relationships for High Performance: The Power of Relational Coordination.  Stanford University Press. 
• Gittell, J. H. (2016).  Relational coproduction in Varde Municipality.  Transforming Relationships for High Performance: The Power of Relational Coordination.  Stanford University Press. 
• Gittell, J. H. (2016).  Relational leadership at Dartmouth Hitchcock.  Transforming Relationships for High Performance: The Power of Relational Coordination.  Stanford University Press. 
• Gittell, J. H. (2016).  Bringing it all together at Billings Clinic.  Transforming Relationships for High Performance: The Power of Relational Coordination.  Stanford University Press.  
• Logan, C. (2016). Understanding Organizational Change in Response to New Payment Models in Healthcare. Brandeis University, The Heller School for Social Policy and Management.
• Resnick, J., Lax, S., Temkin, E., & Gittell, J. H. (2016). Building relational coordination across front-line work groups: A case from Kaiser Permanente Northwest. Avgar, AC, Vogus, TJ, The Evolving Health Care Landscape: How Employees, Organizations, and Institutions Are Adapting and Innovating.
• Gittell, J. H., Godfrey, M., & Thistlethwaite, J. (2013). Interprofessional collaborative practice and relational coordination: Improving healthcare through relationships. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 27(3), 210-213.
• Gittell, J. H., Seidner, R., & Wimbush, J. (2010). A relational model of how high-performance work systems work. Organization Science, 21(2), 490-506.
• Carmeli, A., & Gittell, J. H. (2009). High‐quality relationships, psychological safety, and learning from failures in work organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 30(6), 709-729.
• Gittell, J. H., & Weiss, L. (2004). Coordination networks within and across organizations: A multi‐level framework. Journal of Management Studies, 41(1), 127-153.
• Gittell, J. H. (2002). Coordinating mechanisms in care provider groups: Relational coordination as a mediator and input uncertainty as a moderator of performance effects. Management Science, 48(11), 1408-1426.
• Gittell, J. H., Fairfield, K. M., Bierbaum, B., Head, W., Jackson, R., Kelly, M., ... & Zuckerman, J. (2000). Impact of relational coordination on quality of care, postoperative pain and functioning, and length of stay: A nine-hospital study of surgical patients. Medical Care, 38(8), 807-819.

Systematic Review of Empirical Studies of Relational Coordination

Rendelle Bolton, Caroline Logan and Jody Hoffer Gittell conducted a systematic review following preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, including articles available through 2019.  They began with a broad search of the term relational coordination in Google Scholar for articles in the peer-reviewed literature, published dissertations, and publicly available conference proceedings. They selected Google Scholar as our primary search engine due to the breadth of relational coordination literature across industries and contexts and a desire to capture the gray literature, including null and unanticipated findings, which would not be included in publication indexes alone. After removing duplicates, two researchers screened all remaining abstracts and eliminated all works that did not meet our inclusion criteria: available in English, empirically measuring relational coordination (whether qualitatively or quantitatively), and empirically testing the relationship between relational coordination and the outcomes and/or predictors of relational coordination.  They found studies from 73 industry contexts and 36 country contexts.

For a summary of all results, see  Bolton, R., Logan, C., and Gittell, J.H. (2021). Revisiting relational coordination: A systematic review.  The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science - and here is a blog post about it!