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

Discussion
differ on the amount of boundary activity rather than on the nature of the
activity.
Since the majority of all identified boundary activities were about crossing
the boundary in either direction, the overall amount of boundary activity
may be interpreted to reflect the permeability (Crawford & Pollack, 2004;
Leifer & Delbecq, 1978) of the program’s boundaries. According to this
logic, active boundary activity is associated with a weak boundary, and
correspondingly low boundary activity is associated with a strong boundary.
The perceived boundary strength of the three cases is in line with this
interpretation, as the case program in Chain with the weakest (and thus the
most permeable) boundary was the one with the most active boundary
activity, and the program in Center with the strongest (and the least
permeable) boundary was the one with the least boundary activity. Even
though the relationship between boundary activities and the perceived
boundary strength was not explicitly examined in this study, the empirical
findings provide indications that common boundary crossing activities such
as linking, information seeking and informing can make the boundary
lower, while inactive boundary management may strengthen the boundary
and isolate the temporary organization from its parent organization. The
findings of the present study do not fully reveal whether the association also
applies in the opposite way, i.e. whether a low boundary enables boundary
activities and whether a strong boundary inhibits them.
Although the three examined cases demonstrated a very similar division
of boundary activity to the four categories, the different types of boundary
activities within the categories did not show equally clear patterns across
the cases, and some visible differences could be found. In case Center,
boundary activities focused on informing activities as well as positioning
and negotiating activities, and there were few visible efforts to make the
program legitimate and to isolate it from the parent organization.
Compared to the other cases, case Bureau indicated a more visible focus on
legitimating and committing activities, whereas case Chain demonstrated a
larger proportion of enclosing activities. The role and effects of different
boundary activity types as well as the significance of the overall level of
boundary activity are discussed in more detail further in this chapter when
responding to the research question 4.
Question 3: What are the indicators of successful change
program initiation in terms of readiness for change program
implementation?
In the current study, the success of the early program activities has been
defined by the level of readiness for change program implementation. The
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