Organizational/Environmental Interchange: A Model of Boundary Spanning Activity

Divergent thinking and market visioning competence: An early front-end radical innovation success typology

“…Thus, one important role played by individuals in this regard is networking-that is, taking part in an external web of relationships involving people from a variety of disciplines, industries and functions. Such individuals are typically "boundary spanners" working for the company, who link it with new arenas of knowledge and product applications in the external environment (Keller & Holland, 1975;Leifer & Delbecq, 1978;Reid & de Brentani, 2004). Such boundary spanners enable the firm to operate in an "open innovation" (Enkel, Gassmann, & Chesbrough, 2010) coalition whereby the company's own knowledge base may be enriched through "outside-in processes" attributable to increasing a company's innovativeness (Laursen & Salter, 2006).…”

Environmental managers as institutional entrepreneurs: The influence of institutional and technical pressures on waste management

“…In this paper, we argue that critical in understanding how organizations respond to both technical and institutional pressures is the action of boundary spanners, who are individuals or units that serve to link organizational structure to environmental elements, whether by buffering, moderating, or influencing the environment (Leifer and Delbecq, 1978;Fennell and Alexander, 1987). Boundary spanners are central in both technical and institutional dynamics because they attend to and filter information about the organizational context, as well as maintain organizational legitimacy through their interactions with stakeholders (Aldrich and Herker, 1977).…”

Socially robust knowledge in coastal projects

“…Organisational theorists use boundary spanning in describing activities that occur at organisational boundaries (Aldrich and Herker, 1977). Boundary spanners generally engage in three main activities: they connect different people and processes on both sides of the boundary, select relevant information on both sides of the boundary, and translate this information to both sides of the boundary (Leifer and Delbecq, 1978;Tushman and Scanlan, 1981;Van Meerkerk and Edelenbos, 2013). We focus on what people actually do to span boundaries: so-called boundary spanners in practice (Levina and Vaast, 2005).…”