Boundary-Spanning in NIOC’s research projects: Literature meta-synthesis and the direction of future research

The complex and ambiguous nature of innovative activities has forced organizations to think beyond their conventional boundaries. In this regard, inter-organizational projects are carried out with the aim of developing complex technological systems, changing organizational routines and developing capabilities. Designing and implementing inter-organizational projects creates many inter-organizational challenges and tensions. Appropriate response to these challenges requires determining the milestones, goals and adaptation of the project to the environment through the boundary-spanning mechanism. Although boundary-spanning research has expanded significantly recently, studies show that there are a few Iranian review studies that discusses boundary-spanning, and at the international level, after several decades of the formation of the boundary-spanning literature, there are a few review studies that explore the boundary-spanning phenomena focusing on the inter-organizational projects. Using qualitative meta-synthesis method, this study identifies the main elements and components of boundary-spanning literature and presents a theoretical framework in this field as well as gaps in the literature and the direction of future research. In this research, the concept of boundary, definitions, activities, levels and structure of boundary-spanning and boundary objects are described. Findings from this study show that boundary-spanning research is moving towards the areas of innovation management, collaboration management and knowledge management.