Collaborating across boundaries : theoretical, empirical, and simulated explorations

Complex goods and processes require ever more sophisticated and specialized knowledge; harnessing multiple kinds of expertise to execute tasks, solve problems, and develop strategies is increasingly critical to organizations' survival. When specialists come together, however, they often speak in different vocabularies, worry about different problems, use incompatible tools, and occasionally even serve incongruent objectives. Generating value from specialized knowledge requires creating and sustaining collaboration across functional, disciplinary, and organizational lines so that people on each side of a boundary learn what they need to practice their discipline effectively in support of interdependent work. My research examines determinants of success and failure to collaborate across intra-organizational lines. The dissertation proposes a theoretical framework for examining cross-boundary work and uses qualitative and simulated analyses to explore two cases describing (non)collaboration across boundaries of hierarchy and role. The framework, which emerged through iterative study of field data and literature relevant to cross-boundary work, builds on existing theories of knowledge management, cognition, and innovation and product development and unites them in a way consistent with dynamic theories of structuration and practice. The first case articulates a simple lens integrating three themes in organizational and social theory--daily activities, actors' accumulated resources, and the recursive interactions between these that unfold through time-and turns the lens on a widely cited ethnography describing interactions between doctors and technicians over implementation of a new scanning technology.

Department dc:contributor.department

Sloan School of Management.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2002

Author dc:creator

• Black, Laura J. (Laura Jean), 1963-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Lotte Bailyn.

• Sloan School of Management.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/8435

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/8435