How Team Boundary Spanning is Most Effective

Abstract

Existing research suggests that boundary spanning can greatly advance team performance; yet, realizing boundary spanning’s benefits is notoriously difficult. Our meta-analysis develops and empirically examines a conceptual framework of contingency factors to explain how boundary spanning is most likely to be effective for a team. Drawing from a configural perspective, we derive moderators of the team boundary spanning-team performance link based on different configuration of team boundary spanning (including the type, target, and primary carrier of boundary spanning). Synthesizing four decades of empirical research and meta-analyzing 71 primary studies (comprising 9,197 teams with more than 56,000 members), we find support for our conceptual framework in these configurational aspects to either strengthen (i.e., target of boundary spanning outside one’s organization, team members as carriers of boundary spanning activities) or counteract (i.e., boundary spanning activities that are exclusionary toward external stakeholders) the positive effect of boundary spanning on team performance. These findings contribute to theory development on boundary spanning in teams by demonstrating how team boundary spanning can be implemented to be most effective.