Shifting between boundaries:‘Contextual Examples’ as boundary objects in a Jeweller - Visual Artist distributed collaboration

Cross-disciplinary collaborations are prevalent in craft and design, during which artists draw from or apply knowledge from outside their primary field. In such creative processes, boundary objects are often present. This paper proposes the '’Contextual Examples' as a new type of boundary object and traces its emer-gence through the analysis of data from the ‘Data-Music-Jewellery’ project - a distributed collaboration between a UK-based jeweller and a US-based visual art-ist. Through an initial review, 37 boundary objects, clustered into 8 types, were identified. This paper focuses on how the ‘Contextual Examples’ as a novel type of boundary object seemed to supported the emergence of cross-disciplinary jewellery practice. By offering a nuanced perspective on the roles of 'Contextual Example objectss' in this project, the paper contributes to the understanding of communication, knowledge flow, and the evolution of cross-disciplinary jewel-lery in collaborative settings, expanding the concept of boundary objects with-in design and creative practice

Making authentic: exploring boundary objects and bricolage in knowledge mobilisation through National Health Service-university partnerships

Background: In healthcare, bridging the research-to-practice gap is a top priority. Knowledge mobilisation scholars suggest that this gap can be closed through collaboration between knowledge users and producers. The concept of boundary objects – shared things and ideas that enable communication – has gained popularity across various collaborative work practices, but their potential within knowledge mobilisation in health care is understudied. An ongoing challenge for designers of boundary objects is how to create objects that are valued and shared both in principle and in practice. Aims and objectives: This paper reports on a study of boundary objects used during knowledge mobilisation through NHS-university partnerships called Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRCs). The distinction is investigated between boundary objects-in-theory and boundary objects-in-use, considering whether the latter possess specific characteristics which make them more effective during knowledge mobilisation. Methods: A qualitative case study of three CLAHRCs was conducted. Twenty-one people employed as ‘boundary spanners’ were interviewed to explore whether boundary objects played a role in knowledge mobilisation. Findings: The most effective boundary objects-in-use were co-produced through a process of bricolage. These possessed high levels of meaningfulness and resonance, and reconciled multiple user perspectives. Together these properties contributed to the overall authenticity of boundary objects-in-use. Discussion and conclusion: This paper helps to explain why designated boundary objects frequently fail in practice, and why there is a need to focus on understanding boundary objects based on symbolic, rather than structural, dimensions

Engaging a Multi-Disciplinary Literature Review in the Development of a Framework to Assess Construction Collaboration

Collaboration is essential in the construction industry for successful project delivery. There are various factors that impact collaboration and it is essential to understand and implement these key factors within the project team. Several individuals and firms assist in measuring collaboration among the team members in construction industry. However, the effectiveness of these collaboration measurement tools, developed and used in their management practices needs to be validated, to ensure comprehensiveness of the tool. This can aid in enhancing the quality of the measurement tools and authenticating it. Extensive research has been done to discover factors that impact collaboration in a specific field. This research aims at discovering factors that impact construction collaboration through a multi-disciplinary study and developing a Pareto chart and consolidated graph that can aid individuals and firms to identify the key factors. Firms assisting the industry can incorporate the factors identified through this research in their collaboration measurement tools. As a result of this research, the five key factors that impact collaboration are found to be information or knowledge sharing, trust, open communication among the members, joint decision making abilities and a good team composition with diversity among members

IMPLEMENTING PUBLIC POLICY IN A MULTI-NATIONAL COMPANY: SPANNING OCCUPATIONAL BOUNDARIES

In this action research project, I inquire into the challenge and describe what happened when a multinational company (MNC) implemented South Africa’s Broad-Based Black Economic (B-BBEE) ownership policy, a policy that aims to indigenize economic ownership to redress apartheid injustices. Public policy implementation research generally reports on the effectiveness of different implementation models in public service (McTigue, Monios, and Rye, 2017; Holland et al., 2016; Hupe and Hill, 2016; Kohoutek, 2013), but tends not to explore the implementation of local policies. It also does not explore the more micro aspects of managing across boundaries in MNCs. Globalization introduces management complexity into organizations who operate across national and occupational boundaries. The process to implement the public policy of a subsidiary in a MNC presented an opportunity to study how this novel requirement introduced tensions between occupational communities involved in the implementation and how skills and tools enabled boundary spanning to transfer knowledge and gain legitimacy, thereby easing tensions that threatened to delay the implementation. In this study, I explore how to manage those tensions that arose from different understandings and expectations of the occupational communities involved in the local public policy implementation in the MNC. Particularly, I explore difficulties to engage different stakeholder communities to participate, how to facilitate exchange of information and ease tensions between communities, and how to accommodate different communities’ expectations and goals. My action research project is a real-time longitudinal field study that used cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) as action research modality. I produced data using narrative, temporal and visual strategies from process research. Process research assisted in organizing raw data and provided context and history, from a critical realist philosophy of knowledge creation. In the data analysis, I deployed CHAT to model the human activity systems, to explore what caused tensions between elements in the activity systems of the project, and to understand what I could do to ease those tensions. MNC research is lacking in longitudinal studies extensive enough to explore the complexity of having an impact when using useful methods such as CHAT in complex managerial action-based situations. The findings reveal how I transferred knowledge across community and occupational boundaries and gained project legitimacy by using boundary spanner skills, understanding of MNC bureaucracy and routines, social capital formation, boundary objects, own domain knowledge and knowledge of occupational community practices. Knowledge transfer and project legitimacy were needed to manage tensions arising from actions to engage occupational communities, share complex policy requirements, negotiate competing issues of policy and time, and develop new MNC policy. This study contributes to knowledge by marrying CHAT as action research modality with process research. It applies Carlile’s (2004; 2002) recommendations to transfer knowledge at organizational boundaries across syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic boundaries by using boundary spanning and its skills and tools, as it enabled knowledge transfer of complex public policy requirements to occupational communities in my MNC. Furthermore, boundary spanning established project legitimacy with these communities. Additionally, my own occupational domain knowledge emerged as a key skill that facilitated this local public policy implementation in my MNC. Finally, I contribute a bottom-up policy implementation model, moderated by my experience in my action research project, to identify literature on MNC challenges that may be less relevant today

The Impact and Role of Boundary Spanners and Boundary Objects in Global Project Networks

Globalizing is a key dynamic that is both impacting and reshaping the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industries. Evolving with the twentieth century technological advances such as information technology, AEC firms are now capable of collaborating in a dispersed manner both on the projects and among participants. Because of the global outlook of firms, particularly to remain competitive and to reach new markets, project network participants, are becoming increasingly multi-cultural and multi-lingual. This participant diversity, both individually and organizationally, can lead to boundary formation. Though past research has explored the boundary spanning capabilities within organizations, little is known about the roles and impacts of boundary spanning, both as individuals and as objects, in global project networks. I investigate global project networks in order to assess the emergence, roles and impacts of various boundary spanning capabilities using both quantitative and qualitative research techniques. Data was collected from three different global project networks: 1) two project networks collaborating face-to-face, one was comprised of Indians and Americans, the other was identical but also contained an Indian national who had studied and worked in the U.S.; 2) an experimental setting comparing multi-cultural, cultural-boundary spanned and mono-cultural project networks; and 3) three days of design review meetings within a project network of U.S. and Indian engineers. Firstly, network analysis and grounded theory are applied in order to observe the emergence and role of cultural boundary spanners. In the second, quantitative statistical analysis is applied in order to observe the impact of cultural boundary spanners on performance. Finally in the third, network analysis and grounded theory is used to observe the role of boundary objects in negotiating knowledge. The findings have significant implications in improving the effectiveness of global project network collaborations

Crossing Boundaries: Patients’ Experiences of using a Diabetes eHealth System

This thesis is concerned with exploring patients’ experiences of using a diabetes eHealth system. The context of the study is the growth of interest in eHealth systems that focus on patient needs, alongside increasing home computer use and the rising incidence of chronic diseases, such as diabetes. I aim in this thesis to make a novel contribution to knowledge about how eHealth technology is experienced by patients with diabetes. The study takes the form of a qualitative enquiry into the use of a diabetes eHealth system by a group of patients and their healthcare practitioners at a primary care general practice in Northern England. Using symbolic interactionism as a methodological perspective and taking elements from grounded theory the study produces a theoretical framework based on a thematic analysis of participants’ descriptions of their experiences of using the eHealth system. A diabetes eHealth system was designed and built for the study, and 38 patients were recruited from a single GP practice using purposive sampling. Participants used the system for six months and were interviewed at the beginning, middle and end of the study period. Issues of surveillance, automation, endorsement and interaction influenced use and experiences of the system. Results from the study indicate that participants use and perceive the eHealth system as part of their diabetes management experience. My thesis is that the eHealth system is a boundary structure through which boundary objects, such as electronically formatted blood glucose readings, are created and shared across different social worlds. The eHealth system crosses the boundary between two spheres of an individual’s diabetes management experience, the personal sphere of self-management, and the external sphere of seeking and receiving support from medical experts and others with diabetes. The co-location of these two spheres exposes participants to scrutiny but also opens up new possibilities for collaboration and learning

Innovation persistence during economic crisis by Nigeria's construction contracting firms : an investigation of the critical success factors

Innovation is viewed by many as a driving force for sustainable economic and social change. However, it has been established that economic crisis impacts firm level innovations. The extent of the impact on firm level innovations differs widely across countries and industries. In the case of Nigeria, it has been argued that economic crisis has a disproportionate impact on innovation in the local construction industry. Indeed, the reaction of construction contracting firms to the incessant turbulence in the economic environment has been that of collective belt-tightening and general apathy to risk-taking. This apathy to risk-taking is the reason why Nigeria’s construction industry has been rated as having low disposition towards the adoption of innovative changes. While certainly risky, there are inherent merits in persisting with firm level innovation during economic crisis. Thus, the insistence that a difficult economic environment argues for more innovation, not to pull back and that firms should redouble their innovation efforts during economic crises. Indeed, the need to innovate during economic crisis does not stem just from the quest to succeed but also to survive. However, firms must get their approach to innovations consistently right during economic crisis. Therefore, the present study focuses on identifying and exploring the critical success factors that enable firm level innovation persistence during economic crisis. In order to do this however, it is imperative to identify and evaluate the factors that hinder firm level innovations during economic crisis as well as the merits of firm level innovation persistence during economic crisis. The study utilizes a sequential exploratory mixed method design to explore the research problems. The qualitative data for this study have been obtained through semi-structured interviews with ten (10) management level employees of five (5) selected innovation persistent construction contractors. The themes that emerged from the interviews are further tested through the survey of 83 mid-level professionals employed by 16 innovation persistent construction contractors. To enable an in-depth investigation of the research problem, the present study adopts a case study strategy. The study finds several factors that hinder firm level innovations during economic crisis. Notable amongst these are; unstable funding regimes, increased apathy to costs by clients, erosion of good organizational slack, rapid and incessant changes to clients’ needs and requirements, dearth of creative ideas and reduced appetite for risks. Furthermore, the merits of firm level innovation persistence as established in the present study are; increased revenues and profits levels, increased market share and brand loyalty, improved clients’ satisfaction and brand loyalty, improved operational and resource efficiency, a dynamic knowledge base for organizations and improved employee morale and brand loyalty. Finally, the study establishes that the leadership of the innovation process by the experienced client, the capacity to maintain strategic flexibility, the presence of an effective innovation system and a culture of market orientation are the critical success factors that enable firm level innovation persistence during economic crisis. The present study ultimately lends weight to the argument in support of innovation persistence during economic crisis by providing practitioners and researchers with the merits of firm level innovations persistence, the factors that constrain firm level innovations as well as the critical success factors for firm level innovation persistence during economic crisis