Supporting shared information systems: boundary objects, communities, and brokering
ICIS '00 Proceedings of the twenty first international conference on Information systems
Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change
Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change
The future of business services in the age of ubiquitous computing
Communications of the ACM
The relevance of social issues in ubiquitous computing environments
Communications of the ACM
Electronic Trading and Work Transformation in the London Insurance Market
Information Systems Research
The Impact of Information Technology on Coordination: Evidence From the B-2
Organization Science
Information Systems Research
Organizational Memory: Processes, Boundary Objects, and Trajectories
HICSS '99 Proceedings of the Thirty-Second Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences-Volume 1 - Volume 1
Remote repair, diagnostics, and maintenance
Communications of the ACM - Bioinformatics
Development of an e-maintenance system integrating advanced techniques
Computers in Industry - Special issue: E-maintenance
Journal of Management Information Systems - Special section: Managing virtual workplaces and teleworking with information technology
Journal of Management Information Systems - Special section: Realizing value from information technology investment
Journal of Management Information Systems
Materiality and change: Challenges to building better theory about technology and organizing
Information and Organization
Understanding representation in design
Human-Computer Interaction
Reconfiguring Boundary Relations: Robotic Innovations in Pharmacy Work
Organization Science
Exploring preconditions for open innovation: Value networks in industrial firms
Information and Organization
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To learn and adapt, organizations engage widely in Information Technology (IT)-mediated boundary-spanning. This involves making sense of a swath of peripheral information made available by digital means so as to expand local knowledge. Prior research on boundary-spanning has paid scant attention to material differences between IT systems in enabling or constraining such activity. In this article, we argue that material features do matter: features afforded by IT systems have a significant impact on the form and content of boundary-spanning. We analyze material features and related affordances provided by remote diagnostics systems - a family of ubiquitous IT systems. These features allow remote diagnostics systems to collect, store, and continuously analyze data about the state of machinery and related production processes across space, time and organizational boundaries. Organizations use these systems to determine when maintenance intervention is needed, or to improve their production processes. Often, these systems are run by external service providers at remote sites, which become the new ears and the eyes of a focal organization's production processes. Building on a longitudinal multi-site case study of two organizations, we explore the impacts of remote diagnostics systems on boundary-spanning. We observe that material features afforded by the remote diagnostics led the organizations to change their boundary-spanning in contradictory ways. On one hand, they reinforced existing boundaries. On the other hand, they crossed or cut down others, or created new ones. This suggests that the material features of these systems, when combined with new knowledge creation and sharing practices, within and between the local and the remote sites generate richer, multi-faceted inter-organizational knowledge flows. We surmise that IT's new material features will continue to significantly shape organizing logics that determine where and when organizational boundaries are drawn and crossed. Future boundary-spanning will increasingly be shaped by socio-technical assemblages brought together by increasingly pervasive IT capabilities.