The Organizations Strategic and Environmental Requirements - Essay Example

Running Head: BOUNDARY SPANNING Boundary Spanning Role of Human Resources Management Boundary Spanning Role of Human Resources Management Introduction The human resource management (HRM) function has realized a considerable increase in power, influence, and reputation, but it has not been examined from the perspective of organizational boundary spanning. Because boundary spanning's function of information control provides a source of power, it is helpful in explaining HRM's growing influence in US organizations. However, our conceptualization of the boundary spanning role needs to be refined to incorporate developments after its initial creation. Hence, an evolutionary model is proposed that depicts two stages that the boundary spanning role subsequently undergoes when the conditions for its initial creation are no longer present to justify its existence. Despite what we have termed "phantom threats," boundary spanners are able to maintain their influence through astute management of information that portrays their continued usefulness. This phase however cannot last forever, and boundary spanners need to discover new threats. A review of the development and evolution of HRM in the U.S. supports the proposed model. Because each of the three stages are reflected in the communication patterns of the boundary spanner, several propositions based on the notion of information richness and the nature of the language used in communicating with three critical groups (i.e., external contacts, management, and subordinate staff) are generated to test the model. (Cenzo, 2003) Finally, suggestions for research are made. The political perspective of human resource management (HRM) at the organizational level has been suggested, but while empirical studies have shown this political view of organizations to be a viable alternative (e.g., the influence of interest groups in HRM practices), there is still an inadequate understanding of how HRM departments are able to gain and maintain power and influence. Boundary spanning, with its function of information management, has been shown as a determinant of influence in organizations, and we suggest that this is a possible answer. While many specific boundary spanning roles have been examined, such as sales representatives, purchasing agents, boards of directors, and legal departments, the HRM function has not been systematically analyzed from this perspective. In addition, our current conceptualization is incomplete and must be supplemented by what happens after the creation of boundary spanning roles. We present a conceptual framework for the boundary spanning role that considers its evolution from the initial functional rationale for the creation of such roles, to the institutionalization of its function, to its renewed search for functional justification in order to protect and increase its power base. Boundary spanning has been extensively studied, specifically with respect to the boundary spanner's dual functions of processing environmental information for the organization and representing the firm to the external environment. The boundary spanner's role as information processor helps to protect the organization from information overload, as the boundary spanner filters, interprets, and channels relevant information to appropriate divisions of the firm. The boundary spanner's role as external representative can involve establishing and maintaining the organization's social and political legitimacy, and its public image. Indeed, we argue later in this paper and elsewhere that the increased power, influence, and reputation of the HRM function are at least partially a function of legitimizing and image-enhancing activities. Organizations create boundary spanning roles in response to environmental contingencies which are considered to be important for the firm's well-being. Mick (2005) noted that boundary spanning roles also are selected by the external environment for their contribution to the exchange of information across organizational boundaries. The important functions that the boundary spanner serves are seen as increasing the boundary spanner's power and credibility within the organization. Organizational Boundaries Fang (2005) emphasized the importance of boundaries in defining organizations by noting that observers are able to distinguish between members and non-members as a result of rules, enforced by authorities within the organization, which close off or limit outsiders. Overall, organizations are believed to control their boundaries in order to maintain their autonomy and reduce uncertainty. This Uncertainty reduction is important in that members' actions are considered more predictable than the actions of non-members. Implicit in this notion is the idea that the uncertainty associated with outsiders, or the external environment, is seen as a potential threat to or source of conflict for the organization. However, organizations are open-systems, unable to successfully close off their boundaries from influence from the outside world. Whereas the concept of organizational boundaries relies on the assumption that authorities within the firm seek to maintain those boundaries, the concept of open systems recognizes that some individuals from the organization will have to cross those boundaries in order to deal with the external influences. These individuals serve the role of boundary spanners. Fagenson (2004) argued that boundaries of an organization are malleable (i.e., that is, they change depending upon who is observing the boundaries and what part or aspect of the organization is being observed), for our purpose of addressing the HRM function, we consider the employees with the responsibility for the HRM function as organizational members, and hence within the boundaries of the organization. The Function of Boundary Spanning Roles Boundary spanning roles involve "activities of members or agents of an organization that serve to functionally relate the organization to its environment. Fang (2005) identified five classes of boundary activities: (1) transacting input acquisition and output disposal; (2) filtering inputs and outputs; (3) searching for and collecting information; (4) representing the organization; and (5) protecting and buffering the organization from external threats and pressures. Mick (2005) presented a more parsimonious classification of the boundary spanner's role consisting of information processing and external representation. Here, we focus only on the information processing function of the boundary spanning role. In Fang' (2005) framework, the search for and collection of information is characterized by the need for two kinds of information: (a) information needed for normal decision making and policy formulation, and (b) information of unpredictable events which might affect the organization if they were to occur. Similarly, Mick (2005) saw the boundary spanner as scanning the environment for information relevant to strategic (long-term) planning, managerial (short-term) decisions, and technical developments. The importance of the boundary spanner's information processing role lies in protecting the organization from information overload. In concrete terms, the boundary spanner acts on some information autonomously, delays other information, and consolidates and interprets information and passes it on to the appropriate part of the organization. The ability of the boundary spanner to filter out irrelevant information and summarize and appropriately direct useful information becomes increasingly important with environmental turbulence, when there is an increased need for external information. Fang (2005) did not consider the interpretation of information to be a boundary activity, arguing instead that interpretation is a subsystem activity. This perspective of the limited role in information processing is in conflict with that held by other theorists and our position in this paper. Mick (2005) went beyond Fang' (2005) categorization of this activity to include interpretation of external information. "The expertise of boundary role occupants in summarizing and interpreting information may be as important to organizational success as expertise in determining who gets what information, depending upon the uncertainty in the information processed" (p. 219). March and Simon (2004) suggested that the boundary spanner absorbs uncertainty by inferring information from external data and only passing on the inferences. Dessler (2000) suggested that the boundary spanner's power within the organization is determined by the degree of success in exercising discretion and interpreting external events to organizational members. Creation of Boundary Spanning Roles Organizations differ internally on many dimensions and also exist in different types of environments. Not surprisingly, organizations also differ in the number and type of boundary spanning roles which exist, and the degree to which these roles are formalized and differentiated. Several factors have been associated with these differences. An internal factor linked to the number and type of formally-specified boundary roles is organization size. Smaller organizations are usually less differentiated, and can rely on its members to bring in information from the outside. Since smaller, less complex organizations are more flexible in many ways, they can adapt more easily to environmental changes, reducing the need for specialized, formal boundary-spanning roles. As organizations grow, however, their structure becomes more complex and tasks become more differentiated, and successful organizations respond by creating boundary-spanning roles that match their internal complexity. The type of core technology can also affect boundary spanning activities. In a long-linked technology (e.g., an assembly-line manufacturer), the firm's desire to seal off the core technology from environmental influence prompts the creation of staff roles to interact with those forces, In a mediating technology where line roles involve interacting with boundaries (e.g., advertising firms), both staff and line personnel serve as boundary spanners. Environmental factors are even more important. Cenzo (2003) argued that as environments are perceived to be more heterogeneous, organizations create special structural units to deal with separate homogeneous segments. This allows the firm to disaggregate its environment to some degree, in order to make interacting with any one domain less complex. As the environment is increasingly segmented, the organization's structure is increasingly differentiated in response. This isomorphic tendency applies to the boundary activities as well, in that boundary spanning roles become more differentiated as the organizational structure and the external environment become more complex and differentiated. Instability in the environment increases the need for more boundary-spanning roles. Stable environments, on the other hand, require less monitoring and less information processing, which results in a reduced need for boundary activities. One aspect of a changing environment is that resources or sources of external influence that were once dispersed can become concentrated. For instance, special interest groups can form to unite previously unallied individual factions. These concentrations are essentially concentrations of power, which can prompt the organization to create new boundary-spanning roles (or enhance existing ones) to cope with the perceived new threat. Finally, environments are believed to be either rich or lean in terms of the amount of information that is readily available to the organization, and the necessity of boundary-spanning roles is considered to be reduced in rich environments with "high environmental capacity". In times of organizational conflict, for instance, the need for information is increased, but the amount of available information is reduced. While Mick did not explain exactly how environments have more or less information, it seems plausible from his use of conflict situations to illustrate the point that he may have meant that necessary accurate information might be more difficult to acquire due to secrecy, rumors, or deliberate distortion of information. Mick posited that an organization needs more people functioning as boundary spanners in order to maximize the firm's chances that all available information is obtained. These factors relate to the number of boundary-spanning roles that are required by the firm. Formalization of these roles occurs to the degree that the organization's structure becomes more complex in response to specific external pressures, that the firm's authorities appreciate this effect on the structure, and that the importance of a particular external environmental force is recognized. Boundary Spanning as a Source of Power The influence of the boundary spanner is believed to result from the ability to handle critical contingencies for the organization, and from the dependence that evolves upon the boundary spanner as an interpreter of the external environment. This notion is reflective of theories of power in organizations which focus on the control of strategic contingencies. Furthermore, control over information is used by boundary spanners as a power mechanism to influence decisions within the organization. By selecting, filtering, and interpreting the information that flows between the organization and the external environment, the boundary spanner has the opportunity to manage information in such a way as to serve his/her own purposes; that is, influence the perception/understanding of the relevant segments of the external environment as a critical concern for the organization. In the same way, how that information is conveyed to organizational members is another means to influence that perception. Empirical studies have found support for the influence of the boundary spanner in purchasing decisions and strategic decision-making. Jackson (2004) also found that members of the top management team, whose function does not deal with critical contingencies defined by the organizations strategic and environmental requirements, are still able to increase their power through environmental scanning behaviors. On the other hand, the boundary spanner's loss of power is also a possibility. Cenzo (2003) study of organizational differentiation in response to resource dependence is relevant, although not placed within a boundary-spanning framework per se. Tolbert found that although the dependence on non-traditional sources of funding was associated with departmental differentiation; dependence on traditional sources was not. She interpreted her findings as an integration of the resource dependence and institutionalization perspectives. The resource dependence view states that institutions create more positions to handle relationships with external organizations on which the focal organization is dependent. The institutional view, on the other hand, states that organizations (and society as a whole) have shared expectations and understandings about appropriate behavior and procedures. Organizations experience these shared beliefs as pressures to conform in structure and behavior in order to be considered legitimate and to survive. Dessler (2000) suggested that the resource dependence view would only hold when commonly accepted procedures did not exist; in that case, organizations would create more positions to handle those environmental exchanges. When procedures have been institutionalized, however, increased differentiation is not necessary, because the exchanges can become routinized. In this sense, the institutionalization of the interaction allows it to become a simple, stable task, rather than remaining a complex, uncertain one. Routinization has the effect of reducing one's power by decreasing or removing uncertainties, or by allowing substitutability. In referring to the boundary spanning role as a discretionary job, Jackson (2004) recognized the effect of routinization on power. To the extent that the environment is homogeneous and stable, boundary-spanning roles can become standardized and routine, reducing the number of boundary spanners needed to handle the function, but when important segments of the environment are heterogeneous and changing, the boundary-spanning role requires more autonomy, and the exercise of discretion enables the boundary spanner to become more powerful. Routinization Routinization may be a measure taken by the organizational hierarchy to serve a control function as well, and not just to ensure that the organization is responsive to the environment. Because the very nature of boundary spanning demands that individuals interact with others who have different information, attitudes, loyalties, and goals, the possibility exists that the boundary spanner may come to identify more with outsiders than with their own organization. Routinizing the boundary-spanning role reduces this possibility by limiting freedom on interaction with outsiders through proscribing certain behaviors and reducing the autonomy of the boundary spanner. However, where routinization is not possible, which includes most of the upper-level boundary spanning roles, other mechanisms must be relied upon. For instance, the organization can rotate individuals between boundary roles and core roles to ensure continued identification with the organization). The rational approach to the need for boundary spanners is that such roles exist in order to communicate across organizational boundaries in the context of a complex, heterogeneous, and unstable environment. To the extent that the evolutionary model is accurate, boundary spanners can then be expected to interact differentially with critical others (e.g., their direct superiors and top management, their support staff, and contact persons of the focus external segments), depending on the existing environmental context. To address this issue, an information concept developed by Hezlett et.al. (2005) is used in characterizing the form of the boundary spanner's interactions with critical others. Hezlett et.al. suggested that information richness, the potential information-carrying capacity of data, is needed more in equivocal situations in order to reduce that equivocality. They developed a hierarchy of media in terms of richness, with less rules and regulations typifying less rich, impersonal media, and face-to-face contact typifying rich, personal media. It should also be expected that a greater number of interactions would be needed to cope with unstable, complex situations. Thus, it would be expected to see boundary spanners having a greater number of interactions, using richer media, for complex, ambiguous situations. Conversely, it would be expected to see fewer interactions and the use of less rich media to deal with routinized situations. The content or substance of the interaction is likewise an important dimension of the boundary spanner's management of information to create shared meanings and construct realities. Interpretivist perspectives of organizational communication have suggested that the use of language and symbolic action is a means to gain power and influence. Schermerhorn (2002) argued that ambiguity in organizational communication enables the construction of meanings and can be used as a conscious strategy in a self-serving way to protect or enhance one's position. Indeed, some research has shown that powerful executives often attempt to protect their privileged positions through intentional vagueness and equivocation, thus using ambiguity strategically. Fagenson-eland (2004) demonstrated that the HR department's symbolic actions were related to its power and influence in the organization. A useful a priori categorization of language used in testing our conceptual model is the distinction between rhetoric and plain speaking. Rhetorical language is effective in arousing emotions and conveying messages beyond the actual meaning of the words themselves. It can be expected that boundary spanners resort to rhetoric more when the external environment does not pose real threats to the organization. Boundary spanners interact with three main groups: the various contact persons in the external environment, their own supervisors and other upper management individuals, and their own subordinates (in cases where the boundary spanner is the head of a department). When the boundary-spanning activity is in response to a complex and ambiguous environment, it seems plausible that communications with all three segments would necessitate the use of rich media (e.g., face-to-face meetings) in order to reduce the equivocality of received information, as well as to reduce the ambiguity of any information that they themselves might be giving to the contact individuals. Subtle nuances that might be lost in less rich media could have important implications for the boundary spanner's ability to correctly interpret the information for the organization, thus, rich media should be preferred. It is suggested that a given department can exist at any number of the stages identified in the proposed model at any point in time. That is, the department can be engaged in boundary-spanning activities in response to real threats (the first stage of the model), activities that are designed to create the false impressions that the external threat still exists (the Phantom Threat phase), and activities that are searching or assessing potential threats (the Discovered Threat phase). Therefore, a cross-sectional study of a single department is proposed as a first step in testing the model, where boundary-spanning activities related to various external issues that differ in whether or not they pose as threats to the organization are examined. In addition, by staying within the same department, between-operational department's variation will be controlled for, and the design should be more sensitive to differences in type of communication media used by boundary spanners. The validity of the model will however be ultimately confirmed with a longitudinal study where changes in environmental conditions and the corresponding responses, as laid out in our propositions, can be tracked according to the evolutionary phases in the proposed model. In a cross-sectional study, department heads and top management were asked to rate several current environmental factors for their importance to the organization. For the particular case of the HRM function, these issues would include government regulations for civil rights issues and occupational safety, employment-at-will, productivity and foreign competition. These measures will indicate the perceived relative importance of these issues to the organization as a whole. Non-perceptual measures also can be obtained for some of these issues. In addition, respondents will be asked to indicate, for each issue, whether they see these factors increasing or decreasing in importance to the firm over the next three years. (At this stage of the development of the HRM function, it is expected that analysis of the communication pattern data will reveal that issues such as complying with government regulations will be more routinized whereas productivity and foreign competition will require more time and richer media.) When analyzed for each separate HRM issue, this information on the percentage of time devoted to each issue, the media used, and the language used should correspond to which of the specific issues are perceived as complex (thus requiring face-to-face interaction to reduce equivocality) or simple and straightforward (allowing the use of less rich media). For instance, recall that it was hypothesized that "phantom threats" will be typified by a low level of interaction with external contact persons and staff members, using less rich media, but a relatively higher proportion of time communicating with upper management using richer media. Maintaining top management's perceived importance of these issues, however, would require richer media and more information exchange to ensure that the external threat was still believed to be an important threat. Finally, further research should investigate the implications of communication patterns for power and influence. Boundary spanners who do not engage in the communication behaviors explicated in the propositions should be found to have less power and influence than those who do. References Communication Patterns of the Boundary Spanner Cenzo, David A.De; Robbins, Stephen P.; DeCenzo, David - Fundamentals of Management: Essential Concepts and Applications Prentice-Hall, Harlow, GBR, 2003 Boundary Spanner's Power Dessler, Gary. Human Resource Management. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2000. HRM and Organization Boundaries Fagenson-eland, Ellen; Ensher, Ellen A.; Burke, W. Warner, Organization Development and Change Interventions: A Seven-Nation Comparison The Journal Of Applied Behavioral Science, vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 432-464, December 2004 Boundary Spanning Agent and Organizational Relations Fang Lee Cooke et. al "The Role of Boundary Spanning Agents in Managing Inter-organizational Relations", in Fragmenting Work: blurring boundaries and disordering hierarchies (eds M Marchington, D Grimshaw, J Rubery and H Willmott),Oxford University Press, pp. 135-156, 2005, Boundary Spanner's Interactions With Critical Others Hezlett, Sarah A.; Gibson, Sharon K.Mentoring and Human Resource Development: Where We Are and Where We Need to Go , Advances In Developing Human Resources, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 446-469, 2005 Boundary Spanner in Purchasing Decisions and Strategic Decision-Making Jackson, T. International HRM: A Cross-cultural Approach, London: Sage 2002 Boundary Spanning Function in HRM Mick P Marchington and A Wilkinson "HRM at Work: People, Management and Development", CIPD, London, 2005 Importance of Boundary Spanning In HRM Mick P Marchington and S Vincent "Analyzing the Influence of Institutional, Organizational and Interpersonal Forces in Shaping Inter-organizational Relations", in Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 41, 6, pp. 1029-1056, 2004 Functions of HRM Schermerhorn, John R., Jr. Management, 7th Edition. New York: John. Wiley & Sons, 2002 Read More