Abstract

Boundary spanning has gained significant popularity in the field of information systems given its role as a critical antecedent to innovation and organizational performance. The majority of boundaryspanning studies have focused on assessing the impact of boundary spanning—as an activity—on distinct dependent variables, such as team innovativeness or operational performance, rather than on measuring the success of the boundary spanning efforts per se. In this conceptual paper, we integrate the literature on boundary spanning and usability to delineate three distinct dimensions of boundaryspanning success by measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of a boundary-spanning interaction— that is the dyadic relation between the boundary spanner and the responder. Our exploratory descriptive statistics reveal that although ESM may be useful in supporting teams in enacting effective information search in reaching the requisite target audience and yielding the desired resources, it is less useful for supporting effective representation and coordination. Developing success metrics not only helps us determine the role of IS in boundary spanning interactions, but also provides a behavioral approach to assessing whether or not boundary spanning is successful in itself rather than determining its downstream performance impacts.

Download

Share

COinS