Product management as an organizational system has a long history of practice, which predates most modern academic management research. Its activities span the external environment of the firm, while simultaneously spanning across internal functional specialties of the organization. Thus product management obtains, codifies, simplifies and stores external information making it available to a responsive organization, which uses it to establish competitive advantage and ultimately superior performance. Building on the resource based view of the firm and boundary theory, these spanning activities, which are heterogeneously dispersed across firms, are considered organizational capabilities. Drawing upon the extant product management literature, this research uses product management as a proxy for boundary spanning capabilities of the firm. These capabilities are then empirically measured against two well established firm capabilities; market orientation and firm-level innovativeness. This research addresses a gap in the literature by establishing product management as a set of firm-level capabilities, distinct from the well established constructs of market orientation and innovativeness. Results indicate that external product management capability, defined as channel bonding activities, fully mediates the market orientation – firm performance relationship, while firm level innovativeness continues to have a small mediating effect on performance. Internal product management capabilities, defined as market and technical integration are shown to negatively moderate the external product management capability - firm performance relationship. Theoretical implications include establishing a link between boundary theory and the resource based view of the firm. Practical implications include the strong relationship between external spanning capabilities and firm performance and the dampening effect of cross-functional integration on firm performance. This empirical link between product management boundary spanning practices and how firms ultimately perform could assist practitioners in allocating resources and managing the relationship between the marketing and technological factions of the organization. Most importantly this research establishes the hereto untested link between product management capability and firm performance.

While the role of the school principal has received much attention in stable environments, little research exists on principals working in conflict-affected countries. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to uncover perceptions of Somali principals in Mogadishu regarding their roles and lived experiences, as well as the challenges they face as they lead their schools amid ongoing conflict. In order to understand the different dimensions of the principal’s role and how this role is experienced in such a context, a descriptive phenomenology has been employed. A purposeful sample of eight primary school principals in Mogadishu, which has been the epicentre of the ongoing conflict, was indentified and the principals were interviewed. Through the six-step approach to phenomenological data analysis, as suggested by Creswell (2013), 11 themes were identified. Findings revealed that principals perceived their role as supporting teachers personally and professionally, supervising instruction, facilitating teacher professional development when the security situation permits, having good relationships with governing bodies, and building community collaboration. Findings also showed that, besides security concerns, student mobility, poor facilities, shortage of trained teachers and student discipline were the major challenges to principals. Findings further indicated that principals acted as boundary spanners using a variety of buffering and bridging strategies in an attempt to minimize uncertainty and security risks, as well as to adapt the school to the volatile environment. Furthermore, commitment to keep schools open, despite the huge challenges, a sense of responsibility for student safety, and calm and courageous actions in the face of danger were perceived as critical factors in sustaining principals in their positions. Four conclusions were drawn from the study, including principals’ lack of unity in the perception of their roles, principals’ lack of pre-service training, the possibility and essentiality of providing education during armed conflicts, and the importance of creating strong bonds through principals’ supportive roles. Recommendations were offered for primary principals, local educational umbrellas, NGOs, and UN agencies, as well as for further research possibilities.

Today's global market means that raw materials are sought and bought from all over the world. This creates an higher demand for a well-functioning supply chain. In our thesis we have studied a large paper mill in northen Sweden which experiences issues with flow of raw material. Our aim has hence been to examine which aspects affect the flow of raw materials to the mill, and how these can be adressed using an IT-system. The question we sought to answer was; What factors are important to consider and how do these affect the ability of an IT-system which will support the flow of raw material at the paper mill? We have found that the problems are strongly connected to the low amount of information sharing between the mill and the suppliers. We have come to the conclusion that the paper mill and the suppliers could benefit from boundary-spanning, and that a so-called awareness display which indicates current capacity would support that.

While the role of the school principal has received much attention in stable environments, little research exists on principals working in conflict-affected countries. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to uncover perceptions of Somali principals in Mogadishu regarding their roles and lived experiences, as well as the challenges they face as they lead their schools amid ongoing conflict. In order to understand the different dimensions of the principal’s role and how this role is experienced in such a context, a descriptive phenomenology has been employed. A purposeful sample of eight primary school principals in Mogadishu, which has been the epicentre of the ongoing conflict, was indentified and the principals were interviewed. Through the six-step approach to phenomenological data analysis, as suggested by Creswell (2013), 11 themes were identified. Findings revealed that principals perceived their role as supporting teachers personally and professionally, supervising instruction, facilitating teacher professional development when the security situation permits, having good relationships with governing bodies, and building community collaboration. Findings also showed that, besides security concerns, student mobility, poor facilities, shortage of trained teachers and student discipline were the major challenges to principals. Findings further indicated that principals acted as boundary spanners using a variety of buffering and bridging strategies in an attempt to minimize uncertainty and security risks, as well as to adapt the school to the volatile environment. Furthermore, commitment to keep schools open, despite the huge challenges, a sense of responsibility for student safety, and calm and courageous actions in the face of danger were perceived as critical factors in sustaining principals in their positions. Four conclusions were drawn from the study, including principals’ lack of unity in the perception of their roles, principals’ lack of pre-service training, the possibility and essentiality of providing education during armed conflicts, and the importance of creating strong bonds through principals’ supportive roles. Recommendations were offered for primary principals, local educational umbrellas, NGOs, and UN agencies, as well as for further research possibilities.

Biculturals are increasingly recognized as an important segment of managers, yet U.S.-based global organizations’ limited knowledge and recognition of this group’s distinctive experiences and related implications within their work environment limit the value placed on bicultural managers’ leadership of multicultural teams and the use of their competencies and skills to improve the effectiveness of multicultural teams. Notwithstanding, traditional leadership models are lacking in diversity and unanswered questions remain regarding the role of multiculturalism in global leadership and team effectiveness. The purpose of this qualitative exploratory multiple case study was to gain deeper understanding of the management experiences of biculturals in U.S.-based global organizations and the implications of their bicultural competencies and skills in leading multicultural teams. This study was framed by 3 concepts: bicultural competence, boundary spanning by bicultural managers, and leadership emergence in multicultural teams. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with 7 participants, reflective field notes, and archival data. Identifiable themes emerged through thematic analysis of the textual data and cross-case synthesis analysis. Five conceptual categories that enclosed a total of 16 themes were identified. The conceptual categories are (a) bicultural competence, (b) boundary spanning, (c) cultural intelligence, (d) global identity, and (e) leading multicultural teams. Findings may drive social change by challenging the status quo in existing formal work structures and promoting diversity in the workplace creating emerging avenues for business growth and building bridges of communication between the business world and society.

This study examines how one college in a large private university sought to benefit its students by implementing a program of faculty-mentored, co-curricular high impact practices (HIPs). This qualitative single case study uses confirmatory and exploratory document analysis to examine how an educational leader translated institutional purpose via unit leaders and program managers into the educational practice of faculty mentors. The researcher found stronger and weaker areas of alignment of institution purpose to educational practice across a systems theory-based purpose-to-practice continuum. Variety in the concentration of themes across the data may be due to how these themes were emphasized in the administrative directives and could indicate a training gap in HIPs. In addition, the researcher found that certain HIPs were used more frequently, first- and second-year undergraduates rarely participated, and themes emerged from the educational practice narrative that were important to participants that did not appear in institutional purpose documents. The study offers recommendations to leaders in higher education to (a) use institutional purpose language clearly in administrative directives; (b) educate faculty to create high-quality HIP opportunities for underserved students; and (c) acknowledge program impacts that fall outside declared institutional purpose.

Most professionals working in the field of information technology and communication are able to also work with digital media outside working hours, which could blur the distinction between work and private life. The aim of the study is to examine how the perceived health of these professionals is affected when the boundaries between work and private life blur and to identify the positive and negative aspects of using digital media outside of working hours. The effects on the actual health of professionals working in this line of work are not being examined in this study. Based on existing literature on aspects of working with digital media outside working hours, a quantitative and qualitative survey was distributed to employees working with information technology and/or communication. The study was complemented by additional qualitative interviews. The results suggest that the perceived health of the majority of respondents was negatively impacted by working with digital media outside of working hours. The main reason for this is that they feel overwhelmed with information. One of the conclusions of this study is that respondents may be negatively influenced by the use of digital media outside of working hours but that this does not have to be the case necessarily. A further conclusion is that there are complex combinations of advantages and disadvantages from these aspects which affect respondents more individually. In addition, the study shows that companies need to be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of using digital media outside working hours in order to provide healthy working conditions for their employees.

Safety is an important concern within the construction industry.  Many different management strategies exist in the literature, but despite ambitious efforts to improve the safety and prevent accidents, the accident incidence is still unacceptably high. This paper examines the employment of a safety manager in the Swedish construction industry as a strategy to foster a better safety culture, and discusses how the safety manager should approach the project based organisation (PBO). The study uses an abductive approach with an iteration of interviews, observations and a literature study to gain deeper knowledge of the subject. The research comprises a cross sectional interview study of semi-structured interviews to narrate the role of the safety manager accompanied with a short survey. The study is limited to three projects of one Swedish construction company, and a new role not yet established in the company. Furthermore, the study uses a human resource management approach with focus on communities of practice and boundary spanning. The findings report that the safety managers take on a role as a boundary spanning link between well-established but unsynchronized communities of practice. The identified communities are the HR department and the PBOs. Furthermore, the safety manager functions as a “double-sided” boundary spanner, to broke knowledge and support employees to achieve a satisfactory safety culture.  However, the narratives express a present ambiguity and a need to clarify the role and its responsibilities regarding safety in the PBO. The thesis contributes with insights of the safety manager’s practice and discusses how safety knowledge should be transferred between communities of practice in the fragmented PBO and its high level of tacit knowledge. / Arbetsmiljö och säkerhet är ett viktigt ämne inom byggbranschen. Många olika strategier och metoder för att förbättra arbetsmiljön finns också tillgängliga. Trots detta inträffar alltför många olycksfall. Denna studie undersöker strategin att anställa en safety manager i den svenska byggbranschen för att främja en bättre säkerhetskultur samt diskuterar hur en safety manager bör utöva sin profession.  Ett kvalitativt abduktivt arbetssätt har tillämpats där intervjuer och observationer har växlats med litteraturstudier för att erhålla förståelse av ämnet. Studien är en multipel tvärsnittsfallstudie med semistrukturerade intervjuer samt en mindre enkätundersökning. Studien omfattar tre projekt i ett svenskt företag. Det teoretiska perspektivet utgår från, samt begränsas av koncepten human resource management (HRM), communities of practice och boundary spanning.  Resultatet visar att safety managern kan fungera som en boundary role som länkar ihop olika osynkroniserade communities. Det identifieras att effektiv boundary spanning kan ske mellan HR-avdelningen och projektorganisationerna samt mellan produktionsledningen och yrkesarbetarna inom projektorganisationerna. Safety managern blir en double-sided boundary spanner som knowledge broker samt en support för anställda för att främja en god säkerhetskultur. Resultatet visar samtidigt att det råder oklarheter kring rollen och att bland annat ansvarsområden behöver förtydligas för att nå full potential. Studien bidrar med insikter i hur safety manager-rollen uppfattas och hur den fungerar, samt hur den kan förbättras. Vidare bidrar studien med förståelse för hur rollen kan främja kunskapsöverföring avseende arbetsmiljö mellan communities där hög grad av tyst kunskap råder.

Limited literature examines the impact of the displacement of boundary-spanning employees artificial intelligence (AI). Scholars and practitioners appear focused on tangible benefits of AI adoption, and do not seem concerned by any less tangible and possibly untoward implications of worker (particularly boundary-spanning worker) displacement. My dissertation addresses this gap in the literature. In Essay 1, a qualitative study is performed to anchor the research on the appropriate ethnographic setting, the firms where this displacement phenomenon is taking place, by utilizing the Straussian grounded theory approach. The outcome of iterative coding of the first order data collected from the interviews and content analysis is a conceptual framework which amongst other findings shows how the unique competences of boundary-spanning employees and those of AI are best suited for different spectra of interorganizational collaborative activities. In Essays 2 and 3, I investigate major themes that emerged from Essay 1 utilizing quantitative and qualitative research methods in both studies. Initially I test research models using structural equation modelling on practitioner survey data, after which I probe further via focused interviews to better understand the survey results. The two papers allow us to put forth several theoretical and managerial contributions, specifically emphasizing the positive essential role of boundary-spanning employees on supply chain agility and innovation, even as AI displaces workers. These contributions provide insight into the optimal balance of human and artificial intelligence for today's highly dynamic marketplace.

No description available.