Boundary activities and readiness for ... - Projekti-Instituutti

Research methodology and data
types. In the coding process, such quotations were connected with two
boundary activity types. The decision regarding how each instance of
boundary activity was coded depended on how the interviewee described
the activity. Thus, quotations describing the same or similar activities could
be interpreted as representations of different boundary activity types.
To illustrate these decisions made during the coding process, and example
is given. If an interviewee explained that a meeting was organized with the
key program actors and the line managers of the parent organization to
discuss a topical issue, and the interviewee further described that the aim of
the meeting was to gain insight from all units, then this quote was viewed as
a representation of a boundary activity type called “information seeking”,
and coded accordingly. If another interviewee described the same meeting
and explained that the aim of the meeting was actually to make every unit
aware of the importance of the program, then that quote was viewed as a
representation of another boundary activity type labeled “legitimating and
committing”. If both intents were mentioned by the same interviewee, the
quote was connected with both boundary activity types, i.e. simultaneously
as “information seeking” and “legitimating and committing”. In this way,
during the coding process each quotation referring to a boundary activity
was recorded and linked with one or two boundary activity types. Figure 5
illustrates the process of coding the boundary activities and identifying the
boundary activity types.
Figure 5 Illustration of identifying the boundary activity types
The second phase of the analysis yielded the categorizations of the
investigated phenomena: different boundary activity types, indicators of the
program-parent organization boundary, and indicators of readiness for
change program implementation. Also, a list of potentially relevant
contextual factors that might explain the findings was generated. At this
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