Boundary management in an ICT‐enabled project‐based organising context

• Author: Jillian Yeow
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12036
• Published date: 01 November 2014
• Date: 01 November 2014

Boundary management in an ICT-enabled

project-based organising context

Jillian Yeow

This paper explores the boundaries that emerge and exist

within an information and communication technology (ICT)-

enabled project-based organising context and the ways knowl-

edge workers manage these boundaries through the use of

technology. This is done through an exploratory qualitative

case study of an early instance of the phenomenon in a

knowledge-intensive professional services organisation.

Through the experiences of a group of knowledge workers who

started to work in project-based ways that were highly medi-

ated by ICT, this study aims to understand the boundaries that

they faced and the practices they undertook to manage these

boundaries. In so doing, this study contributes to the existing

literature on new forms of work and organisation, particularly

on the issue of boundaries where ICT-enabled project teams are

used. In particular, this study extends our current understand-

ing of boundaries through expanding the lens of investigation

beyond a predominant focus on work–home boundaries and

considers boundaries within the work sphere.

Keywords: ICT-enabled work, flexible work, project-based

organising, boundaries, knowledge workers, boundary

management.

Introduction

The nature of work has changed significantly in the last 30 years and is now increas-

ingly performed through technologically mediated means (Hislop, 2008; Bosch-

Sijtsema et al., 2010). The use of information and communication technology (ICT)

to mediate contemporary work and enable its enactment and performance with

increasing flexibility (Qvortrup, 1998) has given rise to ICT-enabled flexible working

practices and new forms of work and organisation. One such new form of work and

organising that ICT has facilitated is project-based organising (PBO), by allowing

project teams to be assembled, based on the needs of the project and the skills to deliver

it rather than where project team members might be located. The phenomena of

ICT-enabled work and PBO have emerged fairly independently in discussions of

knowledge-based work. Nonetheless, many connections can be made between the two

spheres. This observation applies particularly to the literature on ‘virtual’ teams, in

which it is often implied that the individuals under study work in projects. However,

Jillian Yeow(Jillian.Yeow@mbs.ac.uk) is a researchassociate in the Manchester Institute of Innovation

Research at TheUniversity of Manchester. Her research interests are in the fields of ICT-enabled work,

organisation studies and innovation, in particularthe socio-technical aspects of work and organisation

in project-based contexts, and the adoption of technological and organisational innovation.

New Technology, Work and Employment 29:3

ISSN 0268-1072

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Boundaries in project-based organising 237

the emphasis has tended to be on the temporal, geographical and organisational

boundaries associated with the virtual (and distributed) nature of work and team

dynamics while the impactof the nature of project-based work and organising on these

boundaries have received less attention(Townsend et al., 1998; McDonough et al., 2001;

Bell and Kozlowski, 2002; Gibson and Cohen, 2003; Powell et al., 2004; Oshri et al.,

2007). Furthermore, many of these studies examine the issue of boundaries at the

individualor team level, and the interplay of boundaries at different levels has received

less attention. This study argues that the boundaries experienced and enacted in ICT-

enabled project-based work and organising involve negotiation and management at

both individual and collective levels, and further changes the nature of other bounda-

ries that are often experienced in new forms of work and organising, with implications

for both the individual and the collective.

PBO involves the temporary coming together of individuals with various speciali-

sations from different functions for a short time around a common problem, that is the

project (Lundin and Söderholm, 1995; Perin, 1998). The use of projects is not a new

phenomenon and is widely establishedin sectors such as film, theatre and construction

(DeFillippi and Arthur, 1998; Bechky, 2006), but it is gaining popularity and promi-

nence in a number of knowledge-intensive sectors, such as financial services, IT con-

sultancy, software development and even academia, as a way of overcoming the

challenges of managing in a complex world (Cicmil and Hodgson, 2006).

Although there are different forms of PBO (DeFillippi and Arthur, 1998; Hobday,

2000; Lindkvist, 2005), this research is concerned with the form in which the project is

a temporary configuration of (human) resources situated within a larger ‘permanent’

organisation, where individuals ‘have other “homes” before, during and after being

involved in a temporary organisation’(Lundin and Söderholm, 1995: 442). Accounts of

this form of PBO have been given by several authors (Hobday, 2000; DeFillippi, 2002;

Sydow et al., 2004), who contend that in such scenarios, there are certain structural

conditions and elements of the ‘organisation’ within and under which projects (and

project teams) operate. Althoughit has been noted that a defining feature of projects is

its temporality, they inevitably rely on a more permanent framework of ties and

networks that ‘provide key resources of expertise, reputation and legitimisation’

(DeFillippi et al., 2003; Scarbrough et al., 2003; Grabher, 2004: 1492). Understanding this

form of PBO is important as the very temporary-permanent tension described gener-

ates a number of boundaries and boundaryissues that are worth exploring. In so doing,

this study makes a contribution to the literature on new forms of work and organisa-

tion, particularly on the issue of boundaries and boundary management practices of

knowledge workers in such contexts.

A key assumption in this research is the premise of ICT to mediate and enable this

form of PBO. The use of ICT to mediateand enable work beyond conventional bounda-

ries has promoted the idea that work can take place ‘anytime, anywhere’. Effectively,

ICT is seen to transcend conventional geographical and temporal boundaries to enable

individuals to work from home and other locations with ease and flexibility (as

explored in the virtual and flexible work literature) and collaborate across distances

with others (as seen in the virtual teams and organisationsliterature) without having to

relocate or travellarge distances regularly. PBO takes advantageof that logic by assem-

bling individuals temporarilyinto projects and teams based on the needs of the projects

and the individuals with the skills required to deliver them regardless of these indi-

viduals’ ‘home’ location, thus allowing them to work, communicate and collaborate

through ICT (Townsend et al., 1998).

Nonetheless, this research considers that the extent to which ICT playsa role in PBO

contexts has yet to be fully explored. Although the literature on virtual teams often

implies that the teams under study work and are organised in projects, the nature of

project-based work and its implications for how individuals approach such work and

organise through ICT tends to be underplayed, with the focus largely on ICT’s influ-

ence to overcome the geographical and temporal aspects of distance work (Jarvenpaa

and Leidner, 1999; Gibson and Cohen, 2003; Sarker and Sahay, 2004; Drouin et al., 2010).

Similarly, although the literature on project-based work and organisation consistently

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd238 New Technology, Work and Employment