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

Introduction
spanned and protected by an array of different types of boundary activities,
and how these activities contribute to the progress of the program. In this
way, the study sheds light on the relationships between temporary and
permanent organizations, which have been described as poorly developed
(Ekstedt et al., 1999). The study proposes that change programs are in
constant search for balance between integration and isolation, i.e. adapting
to the structures, norms and rules of the parent organization and
decoupling from its environment to protect its progress. By highlighting the
contextuality and the open systems nature of temporary organizations (e.g.
Engwall, 2003; Morris, 1988), the study adds to the understanding of the
evolvement and interaction of temporary organizations in their wider
organizational context.
From the perspective of studies on organizational boundaries and
boundary activities (e.g. Ancona & Caldwell 1988, 1992a; Leifer & Delbecq,
1978), the present study extends the current understanding by providing
evidence of boundary formation and boundary activities in temporary
program organizations. The study also contributes to the field of
organizational change management. Firstly, the study provides an
alternative view to studying organizational change from the perspective of a
change program, i.e. a temporary organization that is established to deliver
significant change. The findings also contribute to the ongoing discussion
on the concept of readiness for change (e.g. Armenakis et al., 1993; Jones et
al., 2005). The findings propose dimensions for defining organization-level
change readiness in the context of a specific large-scale change program.
The findings particularly bring up the need to achieve the necessary level of
autonomy (Gemünden, Salomo, & Krieger, 2005; Lampel & Jha, 2004) for
the change effort in terms of the existence of a legitimate and authorized
temporary organization that is dedicated to delivering the change. The
results also join recent studies (e.g. Neves, 2009) in arguing that readiness
for change is something that the leaders of a change effort need to actively
promote to create a solid ground for change implementation. Finally, the
findings illustrate how change readiness may be created through various
types of boundary activities.
Although situated within the field of project management research, the
study makes an ambitious attempt to bridge the gap between the research
fields of project management and organizational change with the help of
the concept of boundary activities adopted from organization theory. Many
of the key contributions described above may be located in linking these
traditionally separate fields of study.
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