Boundary Setting and Boundary Spanning

1
Boundary Setting and Boundary Spanning

• I. The social boundaries of organizations
• (1) Determining organizational boundaries
• Difficulties to determine the boundaries of
  organizations
• Organizations depend on and are penetrated by
  their environments.
• More and more organizations are subsumed under
  broader social structures.
• Organizational boundaries fluctuate over time
  responding to the environmental changes.
• Defining the boundaries of organizations
• Actors who is and who is not regarded as a
  member.
• Social relations Actors are involved in social
  relations of a specific type. (e.g., frequency of
  interaction)
• Activities An individual will perform different
  activities as they cross an organizational
  boundary.

2
Boundary Setting and Boundary Spanning

• I. The social boundaries of organizations
• (2) Recruitment criteria
• A. Rational system approaches
• Boundaries contribute to organizational
  rationality.
• Officials should be appointed by free contract
  according to their technical qualifications.
• The selection criteria are organizationally
  relevant and the selection process is relatively
  free from the influence of other social
  affiliations or non-organizational
  characteristics.

3
Boundary Setting and Boundary Spanning

• I. The social boundaries of organizations
• (2) Recruitment criteria
• B. Natural-open system approaches
• Organizational participants possess multiple
  social identities (e.g., race, gender, social
  class, and age).
• Participants are recruited not only because they
  contribute to goal attainment and effectiveness
  of organizations, but because they possess
  extra-organizational characteristics that are
  valuable to the survival of organizations.
• It is also important to recruit the "right"
  participants, for symbolic considerations as well
  as for technical and functional considerations
  (e.g., certified teachers, licensed
  administrators, certified public accountants,
  etc.)

4
Boundary Setting and Boundary Spanning

• I. The social boundaries of organizations
• (3) Social insulation and social engulfment
• The continuum of organizational control over
  participants
• At one end of the continuum of social insulation,
  organizations are highly insulated from their
  social environments and maintain exceedingly
  bureaucratic work arrangements (over-bureaucratiza
  tion).
• At the other end of the continuum of social
  engulfment, organizations are highly involved in
  their social environments, and takes care of
  their participants' social needs and identities
  (de-bureaucratization).

5
Boundary Setting and Boundary Spanning

• I. The social boundaries of organizations
• (4) Labor markets and organizational boundaries
• The classic economic assumptions
• workers move freely from job to job and firm to
  firm.
• This is a process governed by pressures and
  principles to maximize the fit between their
  skills and the requirements of their job, and
  between their productivity and their earnings.
• Labor and institutional economists
• Information, opportunities, mobility, and rewards
  are differentially structured and shaped by
  varying occupational, industry, and
  organizational arrangements
• Doeringer and Piore (1972) defined
• internal labor markets as those within "an
  administrative unit, such as a manufacturing
  plant, within which the pricing and allocation of
  labor is governed by a set of administrative
  rules and procedures."

6
Boundary Setting and Boundary Spanning

• I. The social boundaries of organizations
• (4) Labor markets and organizational boundaries
• The key elements of internal labor markets are
• (1) a cluster of jobs that
• (2) are hierarchically structured into one or
  more job ladders representing a progression in
  skills or knowledge, and that
• (3) include a few entry ports at the lower levels
  connecting them with wider, external labor
  markets (Althauser and Kelleberg, 1981).
• The use of internal labor market of a firm
  represents one strategy for exercising increased
  control over its social boundaries.

7
Boundary Setting and Boundary Spanning

• I. The social boundaries of organizations
• (4) Labor markets and organizational boundaries
• A. Rational system approaches
• Internal labor markets are created due to the
  specificity of human assets.
• The more and deeper specialized one's skills are
  in the view of a specific employer
  (organization), the more dependent is that
  employer on that employee.
• The organization create a "protective governance
  structure" an internal labor market -- to
  protect the company specific human assets.
• Internal labor markets can be viewed as
  mechanisms for brining employees more fully and
  firmly within the boundaries of an organization
  than is the case with external labor markets.

8
Boundary Setting and Boundary Spanning

• I. The social boundaries of organizations
• (4) Labor markets and organizational boundaries
• B. Natural-open system approaches
• Marxists view internal labor markets as graded
  hierarchies that foster a docile status
  orientation and discourage workers from utilizing
  the power implicit in their skills and thereby
  reduce the likelihood of working-class cohesion
  (Baron, 1984).
• According to institutional theorists, once such
  structures have been created in the more advanced
  organizations, they are picked up and promoted by
  professional personnel officers as being
  consistent with the principles of modern human
  resources management.

9
Boundary Setting and Boundary Spanning

• I. The social boundaries of organizations
• (4) Labor markets and organizational boundaries
• C. Externalization
• Reduced locational, temporal, and administrative
  attachments of workers (Pfeffer and Baron, 1988)
• Labor in particular, workers who are not
  connected to the core functions of the
  organizations is becoming more peripheral and
  even external to the organizations. In contrast,
  investors especially key stockholders are
  being incorporated more fully into firms.

10
Boundary Setting and Boundary Spanning

• II. Managing task environments
• Buffering strategies
• Coding
• Organizations classify inputs before inserting
  them into the technical core.
• Stockpiling
• Organizations collect and hold raw materials or
  products and thereby control the rate at which
  inputs are inserted into the technical core or
  outputs released to the market.
• Leveling
• Leveling or smoothing is an attempt by the
  organization to reduce fluctuations in its input
  or output environments.
• Forecasting
• Organizations try to anticipate changes in supply
  or demand conditions and attempt to adapt to
  them.
• Adjusting scale
• Organizations grow or shrink changing the scale
  of the technical core.

11
Boundary Setting and Boundary Spanning

• II. Managing task environments
• (2) Bridging strategies
• Bargaining
• Contracting
• Co-optation
• the incorporation of representatives of external
  groups into the decision-making or advisory
  structure of an organization.
• Hierarchical contracts
• Strategic alliances
• Joint ventures
• Mergers
• Associations
• Governmental connections

12
Boundary Setting and Boundary Spanning

• III. Managing institutional environments
• (1) Buffering strategies
• Symbolic coding
• Decoupling
• organizations are likely to decouple their
  normative or prescriptive structure from their
  operational structure or activities.
• Bridging strategies
• Categorical conformity
• Structural conformity
• Procedural conformity
• Personnel conformity