Boundary spanning behavior is important for both public, non-profit and private organizations to ‘survive’: to stay relevant in relation to the environment, to innovate, to improve performance and to collaborate in an effective manner, especially in multi-organizational settings. Providing an assessment of factors influencing the work and effectiveness of boundary spanners, and discussing the impact of boundary spanners on different types of outcomes (collaboration, trust, organizational innovation), this book offers a coherent overview of the evolution of boundary spanning in an interactive governance context.
Collaborative working is an established feature of the public, business and third sector environments, but its effectiveness can be hampered by complex structural and personal variants. This original book explores the influence of agency through the role of individual actors in collaborative working processes, known as boundary spanners. It examines the different aspects of the boundary spanner's role and discusses the skills, abilities, and experience that are necessary. It will be of interest to academics, researchers and students interested in this field of study, and provides learning for policy makers and practitioners active in the fields of collaboration.
PRAISE FOR BOUNDARY SPANNING LEADERSHIP "Fostering a culture of teamwork among business units and partners is crucial for bottom-line success. This groundbreaking book, packed with practical examples and based on solid research, shows us how to get started." -- Marc Noel, Chairman, Noël Group LLC "In this deeply insightful look at the demands on 21st-century leaders, Ernst and Chrobot-Mason outline six boundary spanning leadership practices derived from case studies and research with thousands of participating managers. This work is bound to be one of the mostimportant management books of the decade." -- David A. Thomas, Ph.D., H. Naylor Fitzhugh Professor ofBusiness Administration at Harvard Business School "Few books capture the needs and narrative of today's business and so elegantly lay out a plan to address its challenges. Boundary Spanning Leadership nails this . . . Consume it and play your role!" -- Andy Stefanovich, Chief Curator and Provocateur, Prophet "Boundary Spanning Leadership draws on rigorous global research and real-world experience to help leaders move into new frontiers where they can find answers and practices for creating success." -- Jack Stahl, former CEO, Revlon, and President /COO, Coca-Cola "The future will be punctuated by new spans across old boundaries. This book shows you how to improve your span ability." -- Bob Johansen, Ph.D., Distinguished Fellow, Institute for the Future, and bestselling author ofGet There Early and Leaders Make the Future Catalyze collaboration, drive innovation, transform your organization--with Boundary Spanning Leadership you can put it ALL together! We live in a world of vast collaborative potential. Yet all too often, powerful boundaries create barriers that can splinter groups. And this can lead to uninspiring results. To transform borders into frontiers in today's global, multistakeholder organizations, you needBoundary Spanning Leadership. Powered by a decade of global research and practice by the top-ranked Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), this book takes you from rural towns in the United States to Hong Kong's skyline and from a modernizing South Africa to the bustling streets of India, showing you how to build bridges across boundaries. Through compelling stories and practical tools and tactics, you’ll learn how to apply the six boundary spanning practices that occur at the nexus where groups collide, intersect, and link: Buffering defines boundaries to create safety Reflecting creates understanding of boundaries to foster respect Connecting suspends boundaries to build trust Mobilizing reframes boundaries to develop community Weaving interlaces boundaries to advance interdependence Transforming cross-cuts boundaries to enable reinvention Together, these practices combine to create what authors Chris Ernst and Donna Chrobot-Mason call the Nexus Effect. The Nexus Effect allows groups to be more agile in response to changing markets; be more flexible in devising and deploying cross-functional learning and problem-solvingcapabilities; work with partners in deeper, more open relationships; empower virtual teams; and create a welcoming, diverse, and inclusive organization that brings out everybody's best. Boundaries exist. What matters most is how you work to bridge these divides and transform your organization's wide-ranging talents and knowledge to deliver value. With Boundary Spanning Leadership, the possibilities are limitless. For more about the book and free resources, visit www.spanboundaries.com.
The Palgrave Handbook of the Public Servant examines what it means to be a public servant in today’s world(s) where globalisation and neoliberalism have proliferated the number of actors who contribute to the public purpose sector and created new spaces that public servants now operate in. It considers how different scholarly approaches can contribute to a better understanding of the identities, motivations, values, roles, skills, positions and futures for the public servant, and how scholarly knowledge can be informed by and translated into value for practice. The book combines academic contributions with those from practitioners so that key lessons may be synthesised and translated into the context of the public servant.
Multifaceted social problems such as safety, social inclusion, poverty, mobility, rural development, city regeneration, or labour market integration require integrated approaches to steering. This book looks at various organisational arrangements and mechanisms, including whole-of-government, collaborative governance, and outcome steering.
The thoroughly revised and updated Handbook on Theories of Governance brings together leading scholars in the field to summarise and assess the diversity of governance theories. The Handbook advances a deeper theoretical understanding of governance processes, illuminating the interdisciplinary foundations of the field.
The growing intensity and complexity of public service has spurred policy reform efforts across the globe, many featuring attempts to promote more collaborative government. Collaboration in Public Service Delivery sheds light on these efforts, analysing and reconceptualising the major types of collaboration in public service delivery through a governance lens.
Exploring how urban professionals plan, manage and govern cities in emerging economies, this insightful book studies the actions and instruments they employ. It highlights how the paradigms of interventions and approaches to urban management are shifting, indicating that urban governance is becoming increasingly important in dealing with wicked issues, like climate change and social and economic inequalities in cities.
Local governments do not stand alone—they find themselves in new relationships not only with state and federal government, but often with a widening spectrum of other public and private organizations as well. The result of this re-forming of local governments calls for new collaborations and managerial responses that occur in addition to governmental and bureaucratic processes-as-usual, bringing locally generated strategies or what the authors call "jurisdiction-based management" into play. Based on an extensive study of 237 cities within five states, Collaborative Public Management provides an in-depth look at how city officials work with other governments and organizations to develop their city economies and what makes these collaborations work. Exploring the more complex nature of collaboration across jurisdictions, governments, and sectors, Agranoff and McGuire illustrate how public managers address complex problems through strategic partnerships, networks, contractual relationships, alliances, committees, coalitions, consortia, and councils as they function together to meet public demands through other government agencies, nonprofit associations, for-profit entities, and many other types of nongovernmental organizations. Beyond the "how" and "why," Collaborative Public Management identifies the importance of different managerial approaches by breaking them down into parts and sequences, and describing the many kinds of collaborative activities and processes that allow local governments to function in new ways to address the most nettlesome public challenges.
In the 21st century governments are increasingly focusing on designing ways and means of connecting across boundaries to achieve goals. Whether issues are complex and challenging – climate change, international terrorism, intergenerational poverty– or more straightforward - provision of a single point of entry to government or delivering integrated public services - practitioners and scholars increasingly advocate the use of approaches which require connections across various boundaries, be they organizational, jurisdictional or sectorial. Governments around the world continue to experiment with various approaches but still confront barriers, leading to a general view that there is considerable promise in cross boundary working, but that this is often unfulfilled. This book explores a variety of topics in order to create a rich survey of the international experience of cross-boundary working. The book asks fundamental questions such as: What do we mean by the notion of crossing boundaries? Why has this emerged? What does cross boundary working involve? What are the critical enablers and barriers? By scrutinizing these questions, the contributing authors examine: the promise; the barriers; the enablers; the enduring tensions; and the potential solutions to cross-boundary working. As such, this will be an essential read for all those involved with public administration, management and policy.
