Boundary-spanning Research Articles

Value co-creation for digital innovation: An interorganizational boundary-spanning perspective

Despite the enthusiasm for engaging in interorganizational collaboration to enable digital product innovation, firms often face challenges in integrating knowledge across organizational boundaries. Our research examines how collaborating firms use Interorganizational Systems (IOS) tools and project coordinators to overcome knowledge boundaries in different types of ideation tasks. Drawing on boundary-spanning theory, we conceptualize IOS tools as boundary objects, project coordinators as boundary spanners, and the interdependence of ideation tasks as moderators of the impacts of boundary objects and spanners on knowledge integration. Our findings suggest that IOS tools help overcome syntax and semantic knowledge boundaries by transferring and sharing information when the interdependence of idea implementation tasks is high, and project coordinators help overcome pragmatic knowledge boundaries by building reciprocity of innovation participants when the interdependence of idea generation tasks is high. Our research contributes to value co-creation literature by developing a boundary-spanning mechanism to explain the roles of boundary objects and boundary spanners in overcoming different knowledge boundaries to enable digital product innovation at the inter-firm level.

Bottom-up cluster branding through boundary spanners: The case of the Jingdezhen ceramics cluster in China

It is increasingly recognised that for clusters to evolve and initiate new developmental paths, they need to bring in various external resources, especially external human capital. However, external talent often has imperfect knowledge regarding distant places; hence, a key challenge for clusters is to overcome this lack of knowledge and unfamiliarity to ensure that external talent becomes aware of the cluster’s local assets and the possibilities for (re)locating there. It is thus important for clusters to engage in cluster branding: that is, to promote its assets ‘outwards’ and to build-up a positive, renowned brand-name. While place branding is already an established theme in urban geography, cluster branding has hitherto been under-examined in the extant cluster literature in economic geography. Moreover, both the well-researched place-branding literature and the limited cluster-branding literature tend to be primarily concerned with official, top-down branding, initiated by government agencies. This article, instead, shows that branding can also involve organic, bottom-up processes driven by the agency of diverse individual actors, working in tandem with governmental actors. Through a case study of an arts and creative cluster, the Jingdezhen ceramics cluster in China, it unpacks how resourceful individual actors – conceptualised as boundary spanners – have become powerful agents in increasing the cluster’s legitimacy and visibility in the relevant industries through their personal networks and mobility, thereby contributing to attracting external talent into the cluster. More specifically, the study identifies three bottom-up cluster branding mechanisms, namely: convening temporary clusters locally; participating in external temporary clusters; and representing through digital media.

Towards becoming a service-dominant enterprise: an actor engagement perspective

Service-dominant logic (SDL) has become an important thinking, in which service fuels growth of the firm. However, existing evidence offers little explanation of how service emerges as dominant logic. This paper investigates how a firm evolves to become an SDL enterprise. Drawing on theoretical notions of SDL and actor engagement, a case study of Homekoo is performed. The findings show that “service mindset” is the key that drives a firm to embrace SDL, and that technology can act as a “boundary spanner” to coordinate value co-creation practices across different levels, which enhances existing knowledge of actor-to-actor (A2A) interaction.

How boundary spanners wield influence by involving a third person: an exploratory study grounded in social control theory

PurposePower is one of the single most critical concepts for understanding industrial relations management. Yet, despite having been subject to much scholarly attention, existing research often implicitly assumes an organizational level of behavior or examines influence tactics within the confines of an individual-level dyad. This has led to a limited understanding of influence exercises involving a third person. Motivated to advance the understanding of this phenomenon, this study aims to explore how boundary spanners from a buying organization influence supplier representatives by involving a third person.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a longitudinal single case study design grounded in social control theory. Data consist of interviews, observations and documents collected over a period of 27 months in a global sourcing context.FindingsThe findings demonstrate how the influence agent from the buying organization can invoke a third person’s mediated and nonmediated social power base through either direct or indirect social control mechanisms. With these findings, this paper makes a novel theoretical contribution by developing a deeper understanding of underexposed social influence tactics unfolding in individual-level triads.Practical implicationsThis study offers boundary spanning managers with practical insights into subtle and indirect forms of social influence with which they can influence external exchange partners.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to draw on social control theory to examine interpersonal influence tactics in buyer-supplier relationships. By integrating this theoretical perspective with extant research on social power, this study emphasizes the importance of considering how the influence agent mobilizes a third person’s social influence base.

Unpacking the intellectual structure of ecosystem research in innovation studies

In light of the scattered nature of extant ecosystem literature, we seek to (1) identify the intellectual structure and theoretical roots of ecosystem literature within the broader field of innovation, and (2) take stock of how ecosystem research enriches and extends the innovation literature. Based on a bibliometric analysis of innovation and management journals over the past 30 years, we identify three lineages of ecosystem research within the “umbrella” of innovation studies. The first lineage finds its theoretical roots in the literature of product and architecture innovation. The second follows the lineage of open innovation and innovation strategy. The third adopts the traditions of regional innovation and entrepreneurship. Further, we offer an extended-boundary model that features two sets of synopses, explicating ecosystems' contributions to the field of innovation. The first set demonstrates how the ecosystem concept extends the three lineages with its unique attributes from a meta-organisational perspective, i.e., consumption-side synergies, boundary spanning and self-organisation. The second indicates how the concept may be repositioned on the foundational economic theories, i.e., Schumpeterian Innovation and Transaction Cost Economics, and advance how it may integrate the two schools and extend their research implications vis-à-vis profiting from, organising for, and outcomes of innovation. We contribute by organising the fragmented ecosystem literature into an integrative framework, forging stronger links with traditional innovation theories, and offering a cumulative theoretical basis for this promising concept to further flourish in the field of innovation studies.

Hidden Value: Provenance as a Source for Economic and Social History

Abstract Building on the extensive production of provenance data recently, this article explains how we can expand the purview of computational analysis in humanistic and social sciences by exploring how digital methods can be applied to provenances. Provenances document chains of events of ownership and socio-economic custody changes of artworks. They promise statistical and comparative insights into social and economic trends and networks. Such analyses, however, necessitate the transformation of provenances from their textual form into structured data. This article first explores some of the analytical avenues aggregate provenance data can offer for transdisciplinary historical research. It then explains in detail the use of deep learning to address natural language processing tasks for transforming provenance text into structured data, such as Sentence Boundary Detection and Span Categorization. To illustrate the potential of this pioneering approach, this article ends with two examples of preliminary analysis of structured provenance data.

Smart collaborative ecosystem: leading complex school systems

PurposeThe need to innovate and apply alternative forms of school organization is evident as the COVID-19 pandemic has generated a need to establish new conceptualizations of schools and education management. The paradigm shift in learning inexorably necessitates a corresponding paradigm shift in educational organization, administration and management in order to build organizational resilience and capital. This study proposed framework seeks to address this issue by proposing a transformation of educational organization and management, shifting away from the unilateral, hierarchical school models and towards a unique, smart collaborative school ecosystem in which residents, industries, schools, universities and research centers can create new digital knowledge and inventive products, services and solutions by enlarging their capitals.Design/methodology/approachDrawing upon Bourdieu's theory of social capital, our theoretical contribution is to present the influence of three forms of capital (social, economic and cultural) in cultivating educational capacity and resilience in the school ecosystem, with a particular focus on the role of digital capital in reinforcing the school ecosystem capitals. The authors also argue that ecosystem leaders and principals as boundary spanners play an important role in promoting capital exchange and enlargement as they balance the permeability of organizational boundaries at times of crisis by maneuvering across fields.FindingsAchieving educational improvement and building organizational capacity and resilience through the enlargement of system (and subsystem) capitals requires that key actors develop synchronized interpretations of educational aims and functions in various contexts. The authors delineate the importance of developing a synchronization strategy in the proposed conceptualization of smart and resilient school ecosystems.Originality/valueBy integrating research from both non-educational and educational literature, the proposed framework provides a new perspective for educational administration, organization and management, shifting away from the unilateral, hierarchical school models toward a unique, smart collaborative school ecosystem in which members can create new knowledge by enlarging their capitals. Practical lessons for leaders and policymakers from our conceptual framework are proposed.

Enabling boundary spanners in public–private collaboration: The impact of support and role autonomy on reducing role stress

AbstractBoundary spanners are pivotal in developing effective public–private collaboration in public infrastructure projects. As boundary spanners have to account for different interests, perspectives, and ways of working in public–private collaborations, engaging in boundary‐spanning activities often comes with role stress, which can negatively impact their job performance. However, despite the significant levels of role stress associated with boundary spanning, there is a dearth of empirical studies on the role stress of boundary spanning public managers and how it can be reduced. In this study, we empirically investigate the reciprocal relationship between role stressors and boundary spanning and test if supporting organizational conditions can alleviate role stressors. The findings show that especially role conflict is detrimental for boundary‐spanning activities. We further find that top‐management support can diminish both role conflict and role ambiguity and that co‐worker support can help in reducing the role ambiguity of boundary spanning public managers.

How to foster contractors’ in-role and extra-role behavior: the role of interpersonal ties and dependence asymmetry

Boundary spanners of construction projects are representatives of the interaction between the client and the contractor, and their good interpersonal ties are a catalyst for the development of cooperation between the two organizations and play an important role in project success. However, in the existing research, the relationship between interpersonal ties and cooperative behavior is still controversial, and little attention is paid to the individual level of construction projects. Therefore, this study explores the influence mechanism of each dimension of boundary spanners’ interpersonal ties (obligatory ties, instrumental ties, and affective ties) on contractors’ cooperative behavior (in-role and extra-role behavior) and the moderating effect of dependence asymmetry. The data from 248 questionnaires completed by practitioners in the Chinese construction industry show that obligatory ties positively affect contractors’ in-role and extra-role behavior, and the correlation between obligatory ties and in-role and extra-role behavior is positively moderated by dependence asymmetry. Moreover, instrumental ties are positively related to contractors’ in-role and extra-role behavior. However, affective ties only positively affect contractors’ extra-role behavior, and this effect is negatively moderated by dependence asymmetry. These findings have implications for clients and contractors and can help them maintain their relationships, thus improving project performance.

A Temporal Perspective on Boundary Spanning: Engagement Dynamics and Implications for Knowledge Transfer

This study adopts a temporal perspective to investigate how boundary spanners can increase the inflow of external knowledge by engaging with both external and internal parties. We add to prior work on knowledge transfer by shifting the focus from engagement levels to investigating engagement dynamics, especially the degree of switching between external and internal engagement across consecutive time periods. Drawing from a cognitive perspective, we argue that switching strongly between engagement types is associated with a segmented knowledge structure that enables quick and efficient categorical processing when knowledge can simply be “channeled” from source to recipient units. In contrast, weak or no switching is associated with a blended knowledge structure and more reflective processing, which is particularly helpful when knowledge transfer requires more translation and transformation. Correspondingly, we adopt a contingency perspective and theorize that the cognitive advantages associated with stronger versus weaker switching weigh differently, contingent on the stickiness of knowledge to be transferred and the nature of boundary-spanning activities that vary in importance over time. Fixed effects models of eight waves of original survey data reveal that, in line with our theorizing, the association between switching and knowledge transfer becomes increasingly negative (1) the more boundary spanners access knowledge that is transspecialist in nature, (2) the greater the organizational distance between source and recipient units, and (3) in later phases of the boundary-spanning process. Funding: This work was supported by the Swiss Competence Center for Energy Research–Competence Center for Research in Energy, Society and Transition (SCCER CREST) [Grant 1155000154]. The work was also financially supported by a seed grant from the Bits and Watts Initiative within the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2023.1677 .

Boundary spanning and partnership performance: bringing the structural perspective into the game

ABSTRACT In partnership work, boundary spanning is crucial for breaking silo thinking and sustaining focus on inter-organizational targets. However, the literature is agency biased and focuses primarily on the role of individual boundary spanners. We present a complementary structural perspective emphasizing resource allocation, formation of coupling competence and institutionalized support from management. The relationship between structures, boundary spanning and partnership performance is examined using a case study of collaboration across Danish adult education, employment and business support services intended to boost training in private firms. Our findings generally affirm the theoretical propositions and illustrate two viable pathways for organizing partnerships.

Magnetic tower: Within and between-team collaboration experiential exercise

Despite collaboration being integrated into business education, challenges remain in preparing students to collaborate in modern organizations. This challenge is partially due to educators primarily focusing on within-team collaboration while, due to increased work complexity, organizations have moved to multiteam systems which also require between-team collaboration. Therefore, we developed the Magnetic Tower, which integrates within and between-team collaboration in an experiential learning exercise. In this exercise, teams implement within-team collaboration aspects such as communication, coordination, balancing members’ contributions, and mutual support as well as between-team collaboration aspects such as boundary spanning, knowledge sharing, and integration to successfully complete the project.

Black Women Abroad: Constructions of Gender, Race, Language, and Culture

In this qualitative study, we describe how gender, race, language, and culture cumulatively shape researcher development. Using a collaborative autoethnographic design, we theorize about our experiences as two Black women who conducted their dissertation research in Brazil and Ethiopia. Our data sources include retrospective interviews, journal reflections, and researcher memos. We arrive at four themes that reflect our development as researchers: (a) the importance of a boundary spanner, (b) the power of local knowledge, (c) negotiating the use of local and “international” languages, and (d) researcher assumptions developed due to the perceptions of others. We make sense of these themes using an integrative framework that combines a researcher development model and a conceptualization of Black feminist qualitative inquiry. Our findings have implications for practitioners supporting doctoral students of color and researchers who use Black feminist epistemologies to conduct autoethnographic work. By sharing these themes, we contribute to theory, research, and practice about underrepresented researchers in postsecondary environments, particularly related to the linguistic and cultural aspects of doctoral research.

The Making of Convergence: Knowledge Reuse, Boundary Spanning, and the Formation of the ICT Industry

While mastering technology and industry convergence are essential for firms across a growing number of industries, convergence is often rapid and abrupt, challenging firms to develop appropriate strategic responses. Focusing on the historical convergence between information technology and communication technology, we examine the microlevel behaviors of scientists initiating and driving convergence. Analyzing a bibliometric dataset of 257 641 scientific articles, we demonstrate how <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">industry convergence</i> manifests in a microlevel <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">scientific convergence</i> , preceding industry convergence by several decades. Our article contributes to the literature on convergence by developing new bibliometric measures for scientific convergence, and by contrasting microlevel behaviors that underpin convergence. Based on our findings, we offer a set of methods and strategies to assist managers in technology-based businesses with anticipating and responding to convergence in a timely manner.

196 Measuring the Impact of Community Engagement Brokers through Qualitative Interviews

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: As the clinical and translational research enterprise evolves toward addressing health equity and the science of translational science, the CE Brokers are exploring new avenues for impacting the CTSA consortium. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Since 2013, managers of Community Engagement (CE) programs across the NCATS CTSA institutes have met monthly to build connections, share knowledge, and advocate for the boundary spanner role. As the clinical and translational research enterprise evolves toward addressing health equity and the science of translational science, the CE Brokers are exploring new avenues for impacting the CTSA consortium. The CE Brokers are composed of 140 individuals from 58 CTSA-associated institutions, and have a long history that has fostered rich, trusting relationships. The growth and strength of this group has primed it to pivot with the new NCATS direction to contribute meaningfully to the science of community engagement and continue the work of improving health equity within the communities we serve. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: In 2022; we surveyed its members about their roles and responsibilities; the ways the network has contributed to their hub’s adoption and development of best practices and innovations; resources and lessons learned; the creation of opportunities for members to collaboratively conduct and disseminate original research; and research on the science of CE. Grounding ourselves in this initial data, we have developed interview questions to take the inquiry further, by gathering qualitative data on the impact of the group: How the Brokers group impacted them personally and professionally; How the Brokers impacted the work of their CTSA; In three words, describe the group; How could the CE Brokers contribute to the science of community engagement? DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Together, we will identify themes supported by quotes to inform how the CE Broker group is most effectively moving the CTSAs’ mission forward and how it can be improved. These will be shared at the Translational Science Meeting, 2023.

When technologies become Industry 4.0 platforms: Defining the role of digital technologies through a boundary-spanning perspective

The implementation of Industry 4.0 is usually built around core technologies that integrate different complementary hardware and software to coordinate activities within and across the company's borders. These technologies can operate as platforms, becoming the base of technology integration in the digital transformation journey. However, the specialized literature has not yet addressed Industry 4.0 technologies from a system view by considering the types of platforms involved. Rather, most Industry 4.0 technologies are considered singular entities of digital transformation. Thus, we aim to define which and how Industry 4.0 technologies can operate as platforms. We propose four types of platforms that support Industry 4.0 features: (i) Networked Manufacturing Operations platforms; (ii) Vertical Integration platforms; (iii) End-to-End Engineering platforms; (vi) Horizontal Integration platforms. We adopt a Boundary-Spanning (BS) perspective to analyze technologies as Industry 4.0 platforms using four BS activities: information collection and processing, external representation; task coordination; and knowledge transformation. We employ a multiple-case approach by scrutinizing 40 cases and selecting seven in which Industry 4.0 technologies are used as platforms. Although only the internet of things and cloud-based systems are conceived as technology platforms in practice, we show that Industry 4.0 can embrace other technologies as platforms that contribute to building cyber-physical systems. We suggest that some of these technologies can operate either as stand-alone or platforms, depending on how their use is designed in the digital transformation process for Industry 4.0 implementation. We provide a framework explaining platform layering as a value chain for these technologies.

The Ties that Bind: How Boundary Spanners Create Value in Science‐Based SMEs

AbstractHow do boundary spanners, through processes of temporal sensemaking, use established and newly forming relationships to create value in science‐based SMEs? In addressing this question, we examine the creation of social capital arising from the activities that boundary spanners use in establishing ‘ties that bind’ people together. We show how effective boundary‐spanning activities are able to promote collaborations across scientific and related disciplines, supporting knowledge generation and innovation. Sensemaking is central to this process. We illustrate how retrospective sensemaking draws on knowledge, skills and experiences, often triggered through historical connections and personal contacts, whilst prospective sensemaking often arose in the search for new customers and in the ongoing assessment of future potential markets. We reveal how combining individual and collective boundary spanning with a continual movement between the backward glance (retrospective) and more future‐oriented (prospective) sensemaking was particularly effective in generating new understandings and opportunities. We use our findings to present an inductive model of value creation that frames the dynamic interplay between individual and collective boundary‐spanning activities and temporal sensemaking in the generation of social capital that acts as a knowledge resource for identifying and evaluating ideas for innovation and future pathways to value creation.

Strengthening the relationships between different parties: Boundary-spanning competencies in hospital social work

Hospital social workers advocate, facilitate and communicate with patients, families, healthcare professionals, and communities. These activities, in which hospital social workers relate to different parties and aim to strengthen relationships between them, have been referred to in the literature as boundary spanning. This study explores hospital social workers’ boundary-spanning competencies associated with their boundary-spanning activities. The data were from in-depth interviews with 19 hospital social workers in Norway. A hybrid analysis was performed, combining initial inductive coding of themes with subsequent deductive coding based upon a conceptual framework. Four themes emerged: (1) Being informed, (2) Content knowledge, (3) Tailoring and (4) Self-knowledge. The findings contribute to specifying central boundary-spanning competencies. Implications of the study for social work practice and education are provided, along with recommendations for further research.

Commoning Experiments in a State-Corporatist City State: The Case of Hong Kong

This study addresses the research question of how the tensions between urban commons and ‘the public’ might be resolved through boundary spanning. Urban commons offers a new lens for public managers and politicians to rethink ways that urban resources could be governed to enhance public problem-solving and co-create public-value outcomes. Through in-depth case analyses of commoning initiatives at five public markets in Hong Kong, we find that tensions with bureaucratic modes of governance, marketisation of public space, land politics, and little trust in the government were major barriers of commoning. The results also pointed to the unique boundary spanning strategies to facilitate commoning such as using co-creation and political framing to align community interests and public agenda and using legal framing to enable the reallocation of property rights among property owners and community actors. This research also revealed distinct dynamics of boundary spanning in illiberal democratic systems.

Overview of retailers' merchandising and innovation strategy

Boundary spanning involves linking internal networks with external sources of information. Professor Changju Kim, College of Business Administration, Ritsumeikan University, Japan, is among researchers investigating the role of boundary spanners and is doing so within a new field of retail company research. He and his team are conducting various strands of research focused on continuous improvement theory in the field of management. This concerns management issues, such as employee motivation and training, and how these improvements interact with organisational design inside and outside of the company. The studies can then be linked to the qualitative and quantitative results of the company. Kim's research applies the theory of continuous improvement and research results in the field of organisation to retail company research, with a view to solving the problem of buyer management in innovative purchasing activities. Important to this research is associating buyers' purchasing behaviour, inter-firm relationships and internal organisations in issues of purchasing strategies in retail companies in recent years. Kim hopes the work will contribute to the theoretical development of conventional retail company research and channel research. In recent work, the team has been exploring how marketing enables firms to continually create innovative customer value, which includes looking at how creative marketing accelerates a company's growth engine.