Boundary activities and readiness for ... - Projekti-Instituutti
Boundary activities and readiness for ... - Projekti-Instituutti
Boundary activities and readiness for ... - Projekti-Instituutti
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Discussion<br />
a legitimate position, a shared intent regarding the goals, <strong>and</strong> initial<br />
resources, more detailed planning may begin.<br />
In successful change program initiation, after the initial basis has been<br />
established <strong>and</strong> program planning begins, in<strong>for</strong>mation seeking <strong>activities</strong> are<br />
conducted to gather the required input <strong>for</strong> planning. In<strong>for</strong>ming <strong>activities</strong><br />
<strong>and</strong> task coordinating <strong>activities</strong> are simultaneously per<strong>for</strong>med to<br />
communicate the program’s status to the stakeholders <strong>and</strong> to coordinate<br />
the daily work across the program’s boundaries. Also, isolative <strong>activities</strong> of<br />
guarding <strong>and</strong> enclosing are per<strong>for</strong>med upon need to skillfully protect the<br />
emerging program from the harmful external influences, thus establishing<br />
autonomy <strong>for</strong> the program. As the program proceeds, early achievements<br />
such as results from pilot implementations <strong>and</strong> other quick wins are<br />
communicated to the stakeholders. They further legitimate the change<br />
ef<strong>for</strong>t <strong>and</strong> sustain the momentum <strong>and</strong> pace of the program.<br />
On the above described virtuous path of program initiation, the initial<br />
resources of an emerging program are utilized in per<strong>for</strong>ming boundary<br />
<strong>activities</strong>, which support the further establishment of <strong>readiness</strong> <strong>for</strong> change<br />
program implementation. In line with previous research (Akkermans & van<br />
Helden, 2002), along the virtuous path the different elements of <strong>readiness</strong><br />
<strong>for</strong> change start to rein<strong>for</strong>ce each other. The current study proposes that<br />
with the help of skilled <strong>and</strong> balanced boundary activity, early program<br />
<strong>activities</strong> result in a shared intent <strong>for</strong> the change program’s goals, content<br />
<strong>and</strong> structure, committed resources across the organization to implement<br />
the program, <strong>and</strong> a requisite autonomy <strong>for</strong> the program to deliver the<br />
changes.<br />
5.3 Evaluation of the study<br />
This section provides an assessment of the study in terms of validity <strong>and</strong><br />
reliability. The generalizability of the findings is discussed <strong>and</strong> the<br />
limitations of the study are examined.<br />
Research needs to demonstrate rigor in order to have value <strong>and</strong> utility<br />
(Morse, Barrett, Mayan, Olson, & Spiers, 2002). The evaluation of<br />
qualitative research is not a straight<strong>for</strong>ward task. There has been active<br />
debate about whether the criteria traditionally used in quantitativelyoriented<br />
research, those of validity <strong>and</strong> reliability, are appropriate <strong>for</strong><br />
evaluating qualitative research (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Morse et al.,<br />
2002; Seale, 1999), <strong>and</strong> alternative criteria specifically designed <strong>for</strong><br />
assessing the trustworthiness of qualitative research have been suggested<br />
(e.g. Lincoln & Guba, 1985). On the other h<strong>and</strong>, the prevailing criteria of<br />
reliability <strong>and</strong> validity have been described to remain appropriate <strong>and</strong><br />
relevant also within the qualitative paradigm (Morse et al., 2002; Yin,<br />
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