Boundary Spanners' Identification, Intergroup Contact, and Effective Intergroup Relations

Team conflict management and team effectiveness: the effects of task interdependence and team identification

“…In modern organizations, teams have become the method of choice for responding quickly to technological and market changes and thus improving the organization's chances of survival (Illgen, Hollenbeck, Johnson, & Jundt, 2006;Richter, West, van Dick, & Dawson, 2006). Considerable research effort and human energy have been invested in understanding how to create and develop effective teams (e.g., Illgen et al, 2006).…”

Entrepreneurial Cognition

“…This need can be satisfied, for instance, through supervisor and/or coworker support (Caverley et al 2007;Thompson and Prottas 2006), identification with an organizational group (Richter et al 2006), and/or identification with the organization itself Barker and Tompkins 1994). As with the other needs, the need for relatedness can be thwarted by project failure since, for example, it can be associated with losing a specific valued coworker relationship (cf Vince and Broussine 1996).…”

Beyond brokering: Sourcing agents, boundary work and working conditions in global supply chains

“…Boundaries Òact as tools by which individuals and groups struggle over and come to agree upon definitions of realityÓ (Lamont and Moln ‡r, 2002: 168 The literature has emphasised the importance of boundary work, but the boundary work of boundary spanners has scarcely been explored (Levina and Vaast, 2005;Zietsma and Lawrence, 2010). Research on knowledge management has emphasised the significance of boundary spanners (Leifer and Delbecq, 1978;Hargadon and Sutton, 1997;Richter et al, 2006), who play an essential role in facilitating the exchange and sharing of knowledge and expertise by connecting two or more groups of inter-or intra-organisational actors divided geographically, hierarchically, or functionally (Zhao and Anand, 2013). Their effort enables…”

“…Examples of boundary spanners include human resource managers, product development specialists, R&D professionals, and information technology professionals (Pawlowski and Robey, 2004;Richter et al, 2006 (Levina and Vaast, 2005: 339). In contrast, sourcing agents are self-made boundary-spanners in practice who Òengage in boundary spanning, relating practices in one field to practices in another by negotiating the meaning and terms of the relationshipÓ (Levina and Vaast, 2005: 339).…”

“…Second, most research on boundary spanners focuses on actors within an organisation. By showing how sourcing agents, the external boundary spanners, although they are appointed to engage in trade brokering, become self-declared boundary-spanners in practice for labour governance in GSCs, we contribute to the literature on boundary work (Essers and Benschop, 2009;Llewellyn, 1998) and boundary spanning Richter et al, 2006;Zhao and Anand, 2013). In doing so, we also apply novel cross-disciplinary theoretical perspectives to the understanding of GSCs and their effects on working conditions.…”