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

Theoretical background
of each type of boundary activity in advancing the program progress and in
creating readiness for change program implementation. Based on this
analysis, the study aims to build propositions on the associations between a
temporary change program’s external activities and the program’s early
success.
The fifth research question examines the role of contextual factors.
Indicators of parent organization-level, program-level and individual-level
contextual factors are examined, analyzing their association with the
boundary activities and with readiness for change program
implementation. The aim is to identify key contextual factors that may
impact the use of boundary activities in building readiness for change
program implementation. While the external environment of the parent
organization may be in a significant role in the change program, for
example, by providing the rationale for the whole change effort, this
dissertation focuses on the relationships within the parent organization,
i.e., on the inner context of organizational change (cf. Pettrigrew, 1990).
The research framework is summarized and illustrated in Figure 3.
Figure 3 Research framework
The study focuses on program initiation. While the history of the examined
programs is also briefly discussed, the analysis of a change program’s
boundary activities starts from the birth of the formal program
organization, typically from an explicit decision to allocate resources for
program preparation. In this dissertation, the early program stage is
defined to encompass program definition and planning activities that take
place before detailed project-level planning and program implementation.
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