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This study aims to investigate the impact on organizational members of team marks and peer feedback in a classroom as an organizational setting, where equals were engaged in a hierarchical form of accountability. It uses Roberts’s framework of hierarchical, socializing, and intelligent forms of accountability and discusses the viability of intelligent accountability in higher education, given the accountability structure for academics.

Autoethnography based on excerpts from the lecturer’s diary.

The blurred boundaries of hierarchical and socializing forms of accountability create both tensions and kinships for students, and these two forms of accountability constantly impact on each other. Although the accounting tools have an individualizing effect on some students, several examples of intelligent accountability are uncovered. It is concluded that academia’s audit culture, which focuses on immediate outcomes, and academics’ ever-increasing workloads make successful innovations less likely.

This study contributes to the accountability literature in revealing a constant dynamic between hierarchical and socializing forms of accountability through examination of a unique setting in which the boundaries between the two are completely blurred. By empirically examining how accounting individualizes and how intelligent accountability emerges, this study contributes to the limited empirical literature on the impact of accountability on individuals, and particularly to studies of classrooms as organizations, with implications for education policies.

This research provides a new perspective on the long-standing debate of open-plan versus cellular offices. It analyzes the effects of workplace layouts on organizational outputs such as innovation, efficiency and privacy by considering the physical space of an organization alongside its organizational structure. This socio-spatial approach draws on correspondence theory originating from space syntax to understand the potential for unplanned encounters between diverse groups of people.

Three different organizations are studied, two open-plan and one cellular office. Floor and seating plans are analyzed to calculate the degree of correspondence between the spatial and conceptual closeness of people. Demands for each organization are derived from semi-structured interviews and publicly available information.

The three studied organizations present very different degrees of openness toward others in ways that challenge conventional views of cellular and open-plan offices. In each case, the degree of correspondence matches the demands placed on the organization, and hence, providing a relatively good fit between the organization and interior environment.

A larger sample of open-plan and cellular offices would be useful to consider in further research.

Managers can use the concept of correspondence to generate the appropriate degree of unplanned encounters between the right sets of people in order to achieve the best organization-environment fit.

The main innovation of this paper lies in its socio-spatial approach, considering physical space alongside managerial, organizational choices.

Accounting research has traditionally been concerned with how accounting enables the organization of production. In contrast, raises the issue of how accounting is implicated in the production of the organization. Organizations are embedded in wider society, but a crucial element in their formation is that they become (and remain) differentiated from their environments. Uses the idea of boundary maintenance is used to understand how this differentiation is achieved. Boundaries are conceptualized in two ways, first, as thresholds and, second, as binding structures. Considers accounting, as information, as a system of accountability, as a moral order and as a legitimating institution in the context of the production and re‐production of the organization through the management of boundaries.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how accounting is implicated in the creation and maintenance of organizational boundaries. The analysis focuses on organizations subjected to conflicting objectives as a result of new public management (NPM) reforms.

The analysis is based on case studies of four cultural organizations (Show Caves) in Greece. Data are collected from semi-structured interviews, informal discussions and document analysis. The paper draws on Bourdieu’s concepts of “field”, “capital” and “habitus” and Llewellyn’s analysis of organizational boundary maintenance.

The study observes that NPM reforms contributed to shifting organizational boundaries – from cultural/archaeological to economic/financial and this resulted in conflicting organizational objectives. This subsequently created conflicts between key actors (municipal politicians, professional managers and anthropologists). These actors, depending on the positions (and habitus) they occupy, and the capital (political, cultural and symbolic) they hold, are able to bargain for resources (economic capital). The conflicting objectives (archaeological/cultural/historical, political and commercial) that emerged and the tensions that arose between the key players shaped the identities and boundaries of the Show Caves.

The study makes an original contribution by revealing the complexity and struggle between actors and the role of accounting in managing the boundaries. For example, the study explains how financial threshold and accountability structures function within these cultural organizations that are subjected to conflicting objectives in the context of NPM reforms.

The purpose of the paper is to find out the knowledge requirements and its effect on both onsite and offshore project work division for development, re-engineering and maintenance projects in Indian outsourcing software industry in different phases of software development.

This study employs an expert interview approach in Indian software industry to find out knowledge requirement for project execution and division of work between onsite and offshore locations. The requisite data were collected through expert interviews and direct observations.

The study found that the development projects require higher level of domain, strategic, business process and operation process knowledge in comparison to re-engineering and maintenance projects. So there is a need of higher onsite presence in development projects. The maintenance work is taken up at the offshore location in a phase-wise manner.

The implication of the study is in the development of a broad framework of knowledge requirements and work division in on-shore and offshore locations for Indian software outsourcing projects. As the study is based on expert opinion in the context of India, it cannot be generalized for outsourcing scenarios elsewhere.

The software project manager can use the findings to get more insight into the project and divide the software team between onsite and offshore location.

The study is novel, as there is little attempt at finding the knowledge requirement to execute various kinds of business software development in outsourcing environment in the context of India.

Sharing services increasingly extends beyond intraorganizational concentration of service delivery. Organizations have started to promote cooperation across their boundaries to deal with strategic tensions in their value ecosystem, moving beyond traditional outsourcing. This chapter addresses two research questions geared to the challenge of interorganizational shared services (ISS): why would organizations want to get and remain involved in ISS? And: what are the implications of ISS for (inter)organizational value creation?

The conceptual chapter reviews literature pertaining to ISS from public, commercial, and nongovernmental sectors. ISS is understood as a multistakeholder organizational innovation. In order to analyze ISS and conduct empirical research, we developed a taxonomy and research framework.

The chapter shows how ISS can be positioned in value chains, distinguishing vertical, horizontal, and hybrid ISS. It outlines ISS implications for developing business models, structures, and relationships. Success factors and barriers are presented that epitomize the dynamic interplay of organizational autonomy and interorganizational dependence.

The research framework offers conceptual ideas for theoretical and empirical work. Researchers involved in ISS studies may adopt strategic, strategic innovation, and organizational innovation perspectives.

ISS phases are distinguished to focus innovation management — initiation, enactment, and evaluation. Furthermore, insights are provided into processes and interventions aimed at making ISS a success for participating organizations.

Cross-sectoral perspective on ISS; taxonomy of ISS; research framework built on organization and strategic management literature.

This paper deals with the organizing of interactive product development. Developing products in interaction between firms may provide benefits in terms of specialization, increased innovation, and possibilities to perform development activities in parallel. However, the differentiation of product development among a number of firms also implies that various dependencies need to be dealt with across firm boundaries. How dependencies may be dealt with across firms is related to how product development is organized. The purpose of the paper is to explore dependencies and how interactive product development may be organized with regard to these dependencies.

The analytical framework is based on the industrial network approach, and deals with the development of products in terms of adaptation and combination of heterogeneous resources. There are dependencies between resources, that is, they are embedded, implying that no resource can be developed in isolation. The characteristics of and dependencies related to four main categories of resources (products, production facilities, business units and business relationships) provide a basis for analyzing the organizing of interactive product development.

Three in-depth case studies are used to explore the organizing of interactive product development with regard to dependencies. The first two cases are based on the development of the electrical system and the seats for Volvo’s large car platform (P2), performed in interaction with Delphi and Lear respectively. The third case is based on the interaction between Scania and Dayco/DFC Tech for the development of various pipes and hoses for a new truck model.

The analysis is focused on what different dependencies the firms considered and dealt with, and how product development was organized with regard to these dependencies. It is concluded that there is a complex and dynamic pattern of dependencies that reaches far beyond the developed product as well as beyond individual business units. To deal with these dependencies, development may be organized in teams where several business units are represented. This enables interaction between different business units’ resource collections, which is important for resource adaptation as well as for innovation. The delimiting and relating functions of the team boundary are elaborated upon and it is argued that also teams may be regarded as actors. It is also concluded that a modular product structure may entail a modular organization with regard to the teams, though, interaction between business units and teams is needed. A strong connection between the technical structure and the organizational structure is identified and it is concluded that policies regarding the technical structure (e.g. concerning “carry-over”) cannot be separated from the management of the organizational structure (e.g. the supplier structure). The organizing of product development is in itself a complex and dynamic task that needs to be subject to interaction between business units.

The purpose of this paper is to study the interdependent boundary-spanning activities that characterise the level of permeability of knowledge, information flow and learning among construction supply chains involved in the delivery of building information modelling (BIM)-compliant construction projects. Construction projects are mobilised through a number of interdependent processes and multi-functional activities by different practitioners with myriad specialised skills. Many of the difficulties that manifest in construction projects can be attributed to the fragmented work activities and inter-disciplinary nature of project teams. This is nevertheless becoming ever more pertinent with the rise of technology deployment in construction organisations.

The study combined experts’ sampling interviews and a case study research method to help offer better insights into the kind of emerging multilevel boundary practices as influenced by the rapidly evolving construction technological solutions. The experts’ sampling helped inform better understanding by unravelling the key changes in contemporary boundary configurations and related boundary-spanning practices within technology-mediated construction project settings. The case study also helped to establish the manifestation of best practices for managing multilevel boundaries in BIM-enabled construction project organisations.

The study has revealed that different generic organisational BIM strategies as developed in specialised boundaries are reconfigured as appropriate at the project level to produce project-specific BIM execution plan (BXP). The outcome of project BXP is dependent on the project organisational teams that cooperate in creating new solutions and on conceding space for negotiations and compromises which conflicting interests at the project level can find to be both desirable and feasible. The implementation effort is therefore contingent on mutual translation in which different actors with different insights instigate their practice through negotiation and persuasion which eventually are reinforced by contractual agreements and obligations.

The paper has presented a novel and well-timed empirical insight into BIM-enabled project delivery and best practices that span multilevel boundaries of construction organisations.

Organisations either keep spares for their own use, or‐for‐sale to other organisations. In either case, the ultimate need is to be able to replace worn or defective parts in operational machinery or equipment. In an economic sense, spares are kept to meet the needs of the situation in the cheapest way.

Solutions provision depends on effective and efficient supply chains. Existing discourse within servitization has remained at the organisational or inter-organisational level with a limited emphasis on the role of individuals. However, supply chains are not just relationships between organisations, they are complex, inter-personal relationships that span organisational boundaries. The limited focus on boundary spanners and their interactions means that managerial roles critical for the provision of solutions remain unidentified. The purpose of this paper is to identify the functions, roles and practices of boundary spanners that connect organisations and enable the effective provision of solutions.

A case study comprising 61 interviews in 11 firms was conducted in the UK network of a commercial vehicles manufacturer, to investigate boundary spanning for product and solutions provision.

The functions of boundary spanners move from communicating product and price features in product provision towards strategic communication, dissonance reduction, professional education, consultation and leveraging offerings in solutions provision. The study also identifies the boundary spanning roles and practices that form these functions for solutions provision.

This is the first study in servitization that identifies and describes the boundary spanning functions, roles and practices. By adopting the lens of boundary spanning, the research addresses the lack of empirical managerial-level enquiry within servitization research. It extends the theoretical discussion on the differences between supply chain management in servitized vs product contexts.