Group, Task, and Personality Correlates of Boundary-Spanning Activities

Abstract

Boundary-spanning activities were studied in 15 organizations engaged in basic and applied research. Included in the study were 281 scientists and engineers. Contrary to prior theory and research, this study found bound-ary-spanning activities to be unrelated to job satisfaction. It was strongly related to perceptions of research and development team collaboration, job motivation, task uncertainty, locus of control, team cohesiveness, and individualproductivity. The research reported here makes a strong case for including group processes and characteristics in future studies involving boundary-spanning activities. The results also give increased impetus to re-search which examines the relationships between boundary-spanning activi-ties and individual productivity.