It has long been established by management science that organizations that are able to combine and integrate employee expertise across organizational unit boundaries have a competitive edge over those organizations where knowledge remains locked in organizational silos. But how does an organization build this capacity to successfully integrate knowledge between units?

A deceptively simple answer to this question is that, ultimately, the building blocks for connections between units are connections between people. Such individuals who establish connections across unit boundaries are known as boundary spanners. However, while many boundary spanners are successful in combining knowledge on a small scale, only some boundary spanners are able to have an impact on knowledge integration beyond their own individual sphere. Let us compare two examples.

Example 1 – Paul learns from Eva

Paul, a civil engineer working in a unit focusing on urban infrastructure, is developing a design that will be part of a large urban redevelopment project. To resolve a challenge he encounters, he reaches out to Eva, a member of the buildings unit that he knows from prior projects. Eva listens to his questions and gives advice based on her expertise on how to tackle the problem. Paul adapts his design based on Eva’s suggestions and finds it an improvement.

Example 2 – Anna (and her unit) learns from Stephen (and his unit)

Anna, a member of the coastal engineering unit, is preparing a bid for a waterway improvement project. As she grapples with questions related to the project’s ecological impact, he reaches out to Stephen, a member of the ecology unit who she has worked with in the past. In discussing the project with Anna, Stephen realizes that while he can give general advice on the topic, two of his colleagues have recently worked on similar projects and have more detailed and helpful knowledge for Anna’s questions and he brings them into the conversation. As a result, Anna obtains highly relevant new insight that helps her in preparing the bid. She also realizes that what she has learned will be of interest to several of her colleagues working on similar problems and she shares her insights with them. They integrate the new insights in their work.

What is different?

These two situations are very similar. In both situation one person – a knowledge seeker – has crossed a unit boundary by requesting advice from a member of a different unit – the knowledge source. In both situations, knowledge has been shared and its implementation has resulted in an improvement. But the scope of the two interactions is markedly different. While Eva has generously shared everything she knew on the topic with Paul, Stephen also mobilized his unit’s collective knowledge on Anna’s behalf. While Paul has successfully applied his new insight to his own work, Anna has helped to integrate the new insight in her unit’s work more broadly. In other words, Anna and Stephen have helped to build knowledge bridges between entire groups rather than only between individuals.

What makes a good boundary spanner? Meta-knowledge and proactivity

In our study, published in the Journal of Management Studies, we wanted to understand what distinguishes these boundary spanners who are particularly effective in contributing to inter-unit knowledge integration from those whose contribution remains more circumscribed. To this end, we mapped the knowledge exchange relationships among 457 engineers working in different units of an engineering firm and linked these network patterns to knowledge integration between the units.

We identified two key factors that played an important role in explaining which boundary spanners would be particularly critical to inter-unit knowledge integration. The first is the boundary spanners’ “meta-knowledge”. Meta-knowledge is the extent to which they understood what knowledge and expertise other members of their unit had. It is not the expertise itself, but rather knowledge about who has the expertise. In other words, meta-knowledge is knowing who knows what. The flow of events depicted in our second example is only possible thanks to meta-knowledge. Stephen, the knowledge source, needs sufficient meta-knowledge about his unit to recognize who among his colleagues is best suited to respond to Anna’s request. In the absence of meta-knowledge, Stephen would likely have shared whatever he knew about the topic, but he would not have been able to mobilize his unit’s collective knowledge on Anna’s behalf. Anna, the knowledge seeker, needs sufficient meta-knowledge about her unit to recognize who among her colleagues may need to know what she has learned from her interaction with the ecology unit. In the absence of meta-knowledge, the benefit of the new insight would stop at Anna’s door rather than be integrated in her unit’s work more broadly.

Clearly, however, putting these collective knowledge mobilization and integration processes in motion requires significant effort that goes beyond the focal interaction between the seeker and the source. While meta-knowledge provides boundary spanners the ability to do so, ability only results in action when there is motivation. Specifically, we found in our study that boundary spanners’ proactivity was the critical second factor necessary for inter-unit knowledge integration to emerge from individual knowledge exchanges. Proactivity refers to a person’s disposition to take action in order to have a constructive influence on their environment. It is this desire to have a positive impact that would drive Stephen and Anna to go above and beyond in establishing a wider knowledge flow between the units.

How should organizations manage boundary spanning to increase inter-unit knowledge integration?

Our findings suggest two pathways for organizations to increase inter-unit knowledge integration by managing boundary spanning. On the one hand, organizations can benefit from mapping the knowledge exchange network among their employees to identify those individuals who frequently engage in boundary spanning interactions and provide additional training and support to these employees. The primary purpose of such training would be to increase these employee’s meta-knowledge so they can more readily recognize opportunities to establish a wider knowledge flow. On the other hand, organizations can identify employees who already have high levels of meta-knowledge and proactivity and encourage them to step into boundary spanning roles.