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Spanning Boundary refers to an organization’s efforts to establish connections both inside and outside the organization, breaking down rigid boundaries to create mutually beneficial relationships with employees, other companies, suppliers, distributors, customers, and community members. This allows for clearly defined roles and access to information, while still maintaining some limitations. An example is a chocolate factory that allows public tours of certain parts of the business, while still keeping some information confidential.
Spanning Boundary is a term used to describe an organization’s efforts to establish connections both inside and outside the organization under consideration. The need for this is due to the fact that there are certain limitations within and outside organizations as a result of their attempt to create specific units that serve as a structural framework for the various interactions that drive the activities of organizations. To this end, boundaries might be between various levels of employees within an organization, such as senior management, middle management, white collar workers, and casual or temporary workers. This could also apply to the company’s relationship with other companies, as well as the relationship between the company and suppliers, distributors, customers and community members.
This delineation of roles allows companies to clearly define the responsibilities and privileges of each role in terms of what is expected of the individuals who fill the positions and how society will relate to them. Clearly divided roles also allow companies to define the type of access that various groups will have to different types of information regarding company affairs. For example, senior management will have access to confidential information that other groups, such as junior employees, shareholders, consumers, suppliers and business partners, will not have. Through the process of crossing boundaries, the walls that rigidly separate the various units are let down somewhat for the express purpose of creating a relationship that crosses the boundaries of such artificial boundaries.
An example of the application of boundary crossing can be seen in the efforts of companies to reach out to members of the host community in an effort to create a mutually beneficial relationship. The company may circumvent some of its unit delimitation rules by applying boundary delimitation by giving community members a glimpse into a limited part of its formally limited activities. For example, a company that only allows employees access to certain recesses within the company may allow community members to observe some of its operations, including granting them access to declared internal recesses. An example of this can be seen in the case of a chocolate factory which allows members of the public to take guided tours around clearly marked parts of the business where they can watch the process of making some of their famous chocolates. Of course, borders would still exist in the form of a limitation on exact revelations, such as secret recipes and other secret formulas, even though border-extending efforts have resulted in greater access.
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