Cross-functional coordination of entities managing organizational brand protection risks

Abstract

Purpose — to develop a contingency model of cross-functional coordination among the actors managing brand-protection risks, in which organizational interfaces, decision rights and the involvement of artificial intelligence are tied to measured process parameters. Methods — design science research; the theoretical frame combines the information-processing view of organization design, coordination theory, the co-location of decision rights with specific knowledge, and risk-management and artificial-intelligence management frameworks; the artifact is evaluated for logical consistency and through an analytical demonstration on three typical scenarios. Results — a map of six coordination objects with a minimum evidence trail, a typology of four cross-functional failures with a draft codebook, a three-mode contingency model of incident management with a formalized non-compensatory mode-selection rule, a matrix of five decision rights, a system of process indicators, and the application of the rule to marketplace, fake-domain and partner-violation scenarios, showing that the same technical signal leads to different organizational modes. Conclusions — artificial intelligence is treated not as a management actor but as an information-analytical component that changes the speed and structure of hand-offs; the novelty lies in replacing the general recommendation to "create a cross-functional team" with a verifiable configuration of owners, interfaces, evidence, deadlines and escalation rules.