KNOWLEDGE BOUNDARIES AND SPANNING PRACTICES IN CONFIGURING PACKAGED SYSTEMS

摘要

The implementation of organizational information systems (IS) typically involves collaborative work among business area personnel, IS professionals and information technology (IT) vendors or consultants. Knowledge boundaries exist between these domains of expertise, presenting problematic barriers in knowledge-intensive IS work. Our understanding of how IS project teams overcome knowledge barriers in practice remains limited. To investigate these issues we conducted an intensive field study of business user and IT consultant teamwork in a multi-site enterprise resource planning (ERP) configuration project. We assessed three types of knowledge boundaries (syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic) discussed by Carlile (2002; 2004) and identified a fourth boundary (authority-related). Each presented barriers to effective knowledge sharing in the user-consultant teams' collaborative work. We identified four situated practices (translating, illustrating, probing, and escalating) that project analysts, the designated boundary spanners, enacted to overcome barriers and assessed the implications of the practices for knowledge sharing outcomes (communication, integration, transformation, negotiation). Boundary-spanning competence entailed a variety of abilities, which project analysts developed and deepened through their enactment of spanning practices. Our study extends understanding of knowledge-intensive IS project work by integrating consideration of knowledge barriers, spanning practices, and knowledge sharing outcomes. Our study also provides practical insights for nurturing boundary-spanning competence.