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

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replaced by a more active and powerful person. Together these changes in
the positions of the program’s key managers were reflected in the program’s
overall authority, and the program’s overall status seemed to have
increased.
Similarly as in the other two cases, there were no significant physical and
spatial boundaries in Chain surrounding the program, although some
office spaces (such as a special meeting room) were dedicated to program
activities. Related to physical and spatial boundaries, many mentioned their
worries related to the fact that the early program activities took place
mostly within the headquarters, whereas the desired changes were to affect
the whole organization.
In Chain, very few indicators of temporal boundaries could be found.
Work time was clearly allocated to the program activities, and the program
work was typically prioritized over other tasks. Consequently, even though
most people worked part time in the program and a significant work load
related to the program was often mentioned, very few complained about the
lack of time to devote to the program work.
Similarly as in Bureau, the interviewees in Chain did not express many
indicators of social or identity boundaries directly concerning themselves,
but several people stated their worries related to the perceived distance
between the program and the personnel in Chain’s local units that would be
the eventual recipients of the changes. Correspondingly, indicators of a
knowledge boundary were identified as several interviewees expressed
their worries related to the program’s distance from some particular
organizational units and especially the scarce participation of the local unit
personnel in the early program activities. The following quote provides an
example of these accounts.
Q16 (Chain, support team manager and steering group member): “In my [subunit],
I’m sure that my colleagues there would say that they don’t know
anything about this program. … Despite the amount of communication and the
comprehensive intranet site, it may still be that this remains distant for some
reason.”
To conclude the findings, case Chain demonstrated a fairly weak boundary
between the change program and the parent organization. Even though the
overall boundary was relatively weak, many boundary indicators were still
recognized. The visibility of the boundary seemed to differ in terms of the
different groups in the parent organization. The program was closely
connected to the top management of Domain (the company’s largest
business area, where most of the program activities took place) and also
fairly closely linked with many groups of experts located in the
headquarters. However, the program seemed more distant from the
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