This qualitative research addressed systems psychodynamic consultation to boundary management. The systemic, dynamic and chaotic aspects of organisational life formed the backdrop against which the research was conducted. The general objective of the research was to describe a relevant consulting model for organisational consulting psychologists related to boundary management. Literature was reviewed in order to describe organisational consulting and organisational boundaries from the systems psychodynamic perspective. Key principles for boundary management consulting were also described. The objectives of the empirical study were to apply psychodynamic consulting to boundary management and to describe the process. A further objective was to produce research hypotheses about boundary management from both an organisational and a consulting perspective. A case study design was followed. Descriptive data was gathered by means of a participative observer. The data was analysed by means of systems psychodynamic discourse analysis. Ten working hypothesis were produced. These hypotheses culminated into two research hypotheses, describing the primary task of boundary management and boundary management consulting. The first research hypothesis was that the primary task of boundary management is to hold the polarities of integration and differentiation, not allowing the system to become fragmented or overly integrated. The second research hypothesis was that the primary task of the consultant in boundary management consulting is to help the organisation’s managing its own boundaries. This is carried out through taking up the role of organisational consultant, performing the consulting tasks and by applying a consulting process. The researcher concluded that boundary management is an activity of the whole organisation. Boundary management consulting facilitates or supports this organisational activity.

Scholars have advocated that public relations executives need to seek a seat at the table among the most senior officers in the organization, referred to as the dominant coalition. However, this study found that public relations practitioners also need to seek a seat among the division leadership team and executive-level committees to fulfill a valuable internal boundary spanning role, a role that has been neglected in public relations theory. Consistent with social capital theory, the contacts that public relations practitioners developed allowed them to gather intelligence across the company and then they used that information to help their companies make better strategic decisions and avoid costly mistakes. Through in-depth interviews with 30 senior executives from a variety of disciplines, three other services were identified that enhanced public relations’ power and influence: online reputation management, external boundary spanning and advocacy, and stakeholder analysis. Factors that enhanced or hindered public relations practitioners’ ability to perform these services were also identified. Favorable conditions included the use of integrated decision teams, Theory Y management, perceptions of public relations as a strategic business partner, commitment to transparency in communication, internal relationship building, and the integration of public relations’ activities with core business objectives and operations. The study also examined why informal coalitions are formed and found they existed in both companies with strong adherence to hierarchy and those with decentralized management, a finding that contradicts previous theory. / text

This qualitative research addressed systems psychodynamic consultation to boundary management. The systemic, dynamic and chaotic aspects of organisational life formed the backdrop against which the research was conducted. The general objective of the research was to describe a relevant consulting model for organisational consulting psychologists related to boundary management. Literature was reviewed in order to describe organisational consulting and organisational boundaries from the systems psychodynamic perspective. Key principles for boundary management consulting were also described. The objectives of the empirical study were to apply psychodynamic consulting to boundary management and to describe the process. A further objective was to produce research hypotheses about boundary management from both an organisational and a consulting perspective. A case study design was followed. Descriptive data was gathered by means of a participative observer. The data was analysed by means of systems psychodynamic discourse analysis. Ten working hypothesis were produced. These hypotheses culminated into two research hypotheses, describing the primary task of boundary management and boundary management consulting. The first research hypothesis was that the primary task of boundary management is to hold the polarities of integration and differentiation, not allowing the system to become fragmented or overly integrated. The second research hypothesis was that the primary task of the consultant in boundary management consulting is to help the organisation’s managing its own boundaries. This is carried out through taking up the role of organisational consultant, performing the consulting tasks and by applying a consulting process. The researcher concluded that boundary management is an activity of the whole organisation. Boundary management consulting facilitates or supports this organisational activity.

Faced with the challenges to addressing the novelties of the changing business environments (e.g., new customer requirement, changes in customers taste and preferences, the introduction of new products or services by competitors), organizations seek to build collaboration among their employees who possess complementary knowledge. Integrating complementary knowledge enhances employees' ability to address environmental challenges and foster innovation. Despite the importance of knowledge integration for innovation, integration of such knowledge becomes difficult when employees lack a shared understanding of knowledge, and when the knowledge is newly generated. Because new knowledge is tacit in nature and highly personal to a particular individual, it is difficult to articulate, making knowledge integration (KI) an arduous task. Lack of shared understanding, the presence of new knowledge, and lack of common interests in employees creates three types of knowledge boundaries – syntactic (information processing) boundaries, semantic (interpretive) boundaries, and pragmatic (political) boundaries. The presence of knowledge boundaries makes it difficult for employees to share and access their knowledge with each other. To overcome the challenges related to the knowledge boundaries, employees use boundary-spanning objects, which are common lexicons, common meaning, and common interests, to share and access their knowledge across the boundaries. Although prior studies have emphasized the importance of knowledge integration of various knowledge sources for innovations, examinations of what enhances KI capability of employees for organizational innovation remain limited. In addition, apart from Carlile, (2004) and Franco (2013), which are both case studies, other studies that examine the role of boundary spanning objects for knowledge integration are missing. The knowledge management literature also fails to measures (the success of common lexicons, common meaning, and common interests for achieving KI capability) boundary spanning objects. Therefore, in this study, new measurement items of boundary spanning objects and novelty are developed to test the hypotheses. A survey-based design was used to collect data and measure the constructs examined in this study. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the direct relationship hypotheses. The moderation effects were tested using 1) multi-group analysis using hierarchical linear regression, and 2) relative weight of each boundary spanning object determining KI capability at the different levels of novelty. Evidence suggests that while common meaning and common interests positively influence KI capability, common lexicon does not have a statistically significant relationship with KI capability. The results also revealed that KI capability positively influences organizational innovation. Moreover, the results demonstrate that the strength of the relationship between boundary spanning objects and KI capability is different at the medium and the high level of novelty.

Forskning om Boundary Spanning belyser vikten av gränsöverskridande individer i samverkan, inom och mellan organisationer, på alla ledningsnivåer. Inom det svenska Totalförsvaret sker det exempelvis genom civil-militär samverkan. Emellertid sker samverkan först vid uppkomna situationer och händelser, vilket är alldeles för sent. Det saknas förmåga att förnimma påverkande faktorer som gemensamt måste hanteras. Syftet med studien är att, med stöd av teorierna gällande Boundary spanning och gemensam lägesuppfattning, analysera förmågan inom det svenska Totalförsvaret, i skapandet av gemensam lägesuppfattning. För att kunna identifiera förmågeskapande faktorer valdes att fokusera på händelser som aktiverat det svenska Totalförsvaret. För studien valdes två fall, där det ena fallet innefattades av civil-militär samverkan som skedde innan återtagandet av Totalförsvarsplaneringen (Regeringen 2015a), det andra fallet ägde rum efter återtagandet. Sammanfattningsvis har denna studie visat att det svenska Totalförsvaret som metaorganisation måste öka ingående aktörers förståelse för totalförsvarskonceptet. Även mer insikt i vikten av planerade och spontana länkar, med fokus på mer förberedelser i fredstid. Studien visar också att det inte nyttjades gemensamma system för att skapa en gemensam lägesuppfattning. Det förekom olika syn på ansvarsförhållanden, gemensamma målsättningar och interna friktioner. Teorikombinationen har givit bra möjlighet att förstå förutsättningar, hinder och möjligheter att uppnå gemensam lägesuppfattning i det svenska Totalförsvaret. Den jämförande ansatsen gav bra möjlighet att värdera det svenska Totalförsvarets förmåga att uppnå gemensam lägesuppfattning, där resultatet visar på att förmågan till del måste stärkas.

With the ubiquity of digitalization, digital convergence of applications, devices, networks and artifacts presents both challenges and opportunities for individuals, organizations and society. Physical artifacts that were not digital in the recent past are now increasingly becoming intertwined with digital components, providing them with digital capabilities. As a consequence, vast amounts of information that used to be invisible can now be captured, digitized and used in new places and novel ways. Organizations thus seek to innovate IT-enabled services based upon the flows of information across both internal and external organizational boundaries. Because IT-enabled services support organizational actors in communicating and collaborating both inside and outside the organizations’ boundaries, they can also assimilate and diffuse knowledge across these boundaries. The thesis is a collection of five papers and a cover paper reporting an exploration of the role of digitalized equipment in boundary-spanning practices as a contribution to the design and implementation of IT-enabled services. Three embedded case studies of Swedish industrial organizations provide an opportunity to address the research question. The findings are based on studies of remote diagnostics services for industrial equipment enabled by remote diagnostics systems, an application family within ubiquitous computing. The thesis illustrates that remote diagnostics systems have a profound impact on how organizational boundaries that were drawn as ‘cross-overs’ are becoming less limited by constraints of time, space and the type of data shared. These systems permit workers at remote sites to gain access to information about external dispersed equipment and production processes. They also create new boundaries between entities that were not previously connected and across existing boundaries with new information and knowledge. This thesis gives insight into how such information sharing across boundaries may leverage multicontextual practices. This thesis contributes to the existing literature with the development of a conceptual apparatus for understanding how embedded technology transforms boundary-spanning practices from a pure social activity to a boundary-spanning assemblage. Boundary spanning is an increasingly complex sociomaterial practice that fundamentally rests on technology as well as human competencies. The technology is deeply intertwined in the boundary-spanning activity as the sensors installed in the monitored equipment serve as the remote technicians’ eyes and ears. Together, the technology and the technicians form a boundary-spanning assemblage. While information systems research has called for attention to the ‘IT artifact’, this thesis underscores the importance of the characteristics of the specific technology and the profound effects it has had on its surroundings. In contrast to predominant ubiquitous computing research that mainly explores mobile applications, this thesis also shows how the increased embeddedness of IT makes technology an invisible but ever-present part of everyday work practices. Digitalized equipment with embedded technology thus raises not only novel opportunities but also novel challenges for both users and researchers. We can design IT solutions today where people close to the technology have no access to or awareness of it. People can be monitored without visual cues revealing the monitoring. Furthermore, developing or using an IT-enabled service is not merely about developing/using a technology or a system; it also involves issues about the technology’s value creation, its ownership, competencies and customer relationships. IT and services should thus not be considered as separate and subsequent processes: they are deeply intertwined and mutual. This thesis thus suggests that digitalized equipment with embedded technology deserves critical scrutiny.

Metateams are both largely unexplored in the IS literature and economically important to major corporations and their IT vendors. Metateams are temporary groups composed of two or more geographically and inter-organisationally dispersed teams, commercially linked by project-specific agreements and enabled by electronic means of communication. Each one of these teams fulfils a particular and measurable objective, enshrined in the team's goal hierarchy and contractual obligations. The combination of efforts from every team in a metateam, contributes to achieving a common distant goal of project implementation. Thus, metateams are temporary teams (or groups) of distributed teams working across distance, firms, and cultures. In metateams, each participant team works with other teams on organisationally heterogeneous collaborative projects. Metateams are new and potentially powerful work structures resulting from the convergence of outsourcing, virtual organisations, and demands for global competitiveness. They promise to build IT solutions of high complexity, by integrating expertise from different fields and organisations. With the assistance of communication technologies, metateams can conquer barriers of time and space, enabling collaborative endeavours across a nation or across the globe. In a global business environment that demands innovation, flexibility, and responsiveness, metateams represent a revolution in the way organisations and practitioners do IT projects. However, as this study found, managing metateams presents unique difficulties due to conflicting demands arising from multiple realities. This dissertation presents an empirical research using a grounded theory approach that studies a major IT project performed by a metateam. The conceptual account emerges from an exploratory study of a major IT development and implementation project in the telecommunication industry. The project involved three key organisations and teams based in Australia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. The core pattern emerging from this study is one of constant conflict discovery and resolution, a process that progressively, and at a cost, allows the project to evolve from its initial incongruence into either a working solution or into project abandonment. This theory-building study presents a theoretical model, grounded on rich empirical data, interrelating key concepts of cost, conflict, communication, and trust, which serves to explain the pattern of actions and to propose a number of practical conclusions and recommendations. This research was guided by two key research objectives: (a) to add theoretical content to the understanding of key processes enacted by metateams in performing IT project work; and (b), to develop a framework that assists researchers and practitioners in predicting, explaining, and evaluating events and process associated with metateams. To the author's best knowledge, this study describes for the first time in the IS literature, the metateam organisation and the significant contextual issues they confront. In doing so, the study develops an understanding, grounded on rich empirical data from the substantive field of metateams. This new understanding contributes to both IS research and practice and provides guidance for future research.

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