Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Beyond the Boundary: Managing External Relationships in New Product Teams
It is unfortunate that, at the very time research on group process is on the wane, the use of groups in organizations is increasing (Goodstein & Dovico, 1979). Tasks that once were performed by individuals are assigned increasingly to groups, because the tasks are complex, and producing results requires combining information and expertise from diverse sources. The group literature that does exist focuses primarily on internal group processes such as decision making and problem solving, on groups engaged in simple tasks, and on cross-sectional data. This orientation does not fit the reality of organizational task groups, managing external as well as internal processes, that is the focus of this paper.
The basic assertion of this paper is that the management of external relationships (henceforth called boundary management) is a critical predictor of team effectiveness. This is particularly true of a team that must engage in exchange relationships with many other actors both inside and outside the organization, in order to obtain information and resources (Spread, 1984). Boundary management is essential for a team that does not control all the critical resources needed to accomplish its task. Applying the resource dependency perspective (Pfefer & Salancik, 1978) such a team is not autonomous but rather constrained by a network of interdependencies with other parts of the organization and the external environment. This interdependence, when coupled with uncertainty about what actions those other parts of the organization will take, leads to uncertainty about the survival and success of the focal team. Therefore, a team must take action to manage external interdependencies. These actions lead to new patterns of dependence and interdependence that require ongoing boundary management (Pfeffer, 1985).
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