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

Theoretical background
environment. Thompson proposed buffering as a way to resolve this
paradox. Based on the idea of core technology, Thompson stated that
organizations seek to buffer environmental influences in order to protect
their technical core, and to smooth out or level the input and output
transactions in order to reduce environmental fluctuations. If
environmental influences cannot be buffered or leveled, organizations seek
to anticipate environmental changes and adapt to them. (ibid.)
The early literature on boundary spanning primarily represented the
information processing view of the organization (e.g. Aldrich & Herker,
1977; Dollinger, 1984; Keller & Holland, 1975; Leifer & Delbecq, 1978;
Leifer & Huber, 1977). According to this view, the demand for boundary
spanning activities stems from the information requirements of the
decision makers and from the perceived uncertainty: information about the
environment must reach organizational decision makers so that they can
make appropriate decisions in line with relevant environmental conditions
and contingencies (Leifer & Delbecq, 1978). Decision makers thus
determine the information gathering requirements of the organization
based on their perception of uncertainty. Environmental uncertainty is a
subjective matter: it is a question of the uncertainty the decision maker
perceives rather than a simple attribute of an environment (ibid). Also,
organizations face multiple environments, and thus have a variety of
boundaries and different kinds of boundary roles (Aldrich & Herker, 1977).
From the information processing perspective, boundary spanners monitor
the environment and transfer information across boundaries (Keller &
Holland, 1975). Boundary spanners act as exchange agents between the
organization and its environment (Leifer & Delbecq, 1978). They are both
facilitators and filters of information transmission, as they protect
organizations from information overload by filtering, consolidating,
interpreting, delaying, storing, summarizing, and directing information
(Aldrich & Herker, 1977). Determining which flows to admit and which to
exclude is a difficult task, and the criteria may vary from time to time and
from location to location (Scott, 2003). In a sense, boundary spanners
absorb uncertainty on behalf of others in their organization (Leifer &
Delbecq, 1978).
Boundary spanning has several purposes. It is a means for recognizing
and dealing with trends or changes in an organization’s environment
(Jemison, 1984), and the information gained through boundary spanning
activities may promote innovation and change (Aldrich & Herker, 1977;
Leifer & Delbecq, 1978). In addition to information processing, boundary
spanners are involved in acquiring resources and representing the
organization (Aldrich & Herker, 1977). Boundary spanning is also a political
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