Emergent coordination relies on the accomplishment of three integrative conditions : accountability, predictability and common understanding. In this perspective organizations must constantly work to (re)create them, despite the many collective dynamics that can erode their achievement (Okhuysen & Bechky 2009). In particular, organizations operating in cross-border regions face social and political challenges as 1. diverse profile of actors are permanently required and 2. because every situation at the border naturally raises political concerns associated to questions of national sovereignty. Because of divergent political agendas and interests, social incompatibilities or geopolitical conflicts, uncertainty can arise and erode the coordination process yet without necessarily affecting the capacity to achieve the three conditions identified by Okhuysen and Bechky (2009). Based on an in-depth investigation of the Mont-Blanc and the Franco-Belgian regions, we developed a coordination-practice perspective that stress the need to consider acceptability as a new condition of coordination and in doing so, emphasize the efforts and work of actors engaged in such coordination process. Acceptability can be defined as the actors’ willingness to accomplish and/or maintain tasks allocation and to support interaction articulations so that each member can benefit from the interaction. By creating acceptability, actors agree to engage in coordination work and consent to make and/or maintain such efforts so that complex interdependencies can be managed. We suggest that acceptability is achieved through three different practices: practices of consensus, conciliation or arbitration. Each of these practices is supported by different institutional, strategical and operational actors whose work converge respectively towards different dynamics : unity, coexistence and calculation.
