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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/2451/14121
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| Title: | The Emergence of Boundary Spanning Competence in Practice: Implications
for Information Systems' Implementation Use |
| Authors: | Levina, Natalia
Vaaste, Emmanuelle |
| Keywords: | Boundary spanning
boundary objects
boundary spanners
boundaries
practice theory
Bourdieu
Knowledge Management
organizational learning
IS implementation
IS use
client-consultant relationship
intranet, roles |
| Issue Date: | 2004 |
| Publisher: | Stern School of Business, New York University |
| Series/Report no.: | CeDER-04-07 |
| Abstract: | Knowledge Management (KM) literature has centrally focused on
organization's ability to build practices that integrate diverse
expertise across professional, organizational, industry and other
boundaries. In this paper we investigate how an organizational
competence in boundary spanning emerges in practice. We draw on the
concepts of boundary spanner and boundary object and on the
practice-based view of KM in organizations to understand the emergence
of boundary spanning in practice, which we define as relating practices
from diverse fields. We contrast data from two qualitative, longitudinal
field studies to draw our conclusions. We argue that for boundary
spanning to emerge in practice a new joint field, which unites agent in
a common pursuit, needs to be produced. Engagement of agents in this
practice partially transforms their practices in local fields so as to
accommodate the interests of their counterparts. Those agents who engage
in negotiating the nature of this new field become boundary
spanners-in-practice. Through their engagements in the new joint field
and diverse local practices boundary spanners-in-practice produce and
use objects which become locally useful and acquire a joint identity
through their use â boundary objects-in-use. Through data
analysis we find, first, that nominated boundary spanners and designated
boundary objects do not always become boundary spanners-in-practice and
boundary objects-in-use. Second, we outline the conditions necessary for
boundary spanners-in-practice to emerge, including the need for them to
become legitimate, albeit peripheral, participants in the practices of
the fields that they span. Thirdly, we show how boundary
spanners-in-practice use their symbolic, cultural, social, and economic
resources (capital) to build the new joint field. Finally, we examine
the tensions involved in a) the nomination of agents as boundary
spanners and artifacts as boundary objects; b) the growth of the new
joint field; c) agentsâ choice in investing in the new joint
field; and d) spanning one at the expense of another kind of boundary.
We conclude by drawing implications for IS implementation and use. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2451/14121 |
| Appears in Collections: | CeDER Working Papers
IOMS: Information Systems Working Papers
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