Understanding Organizational Boundaries in an Interorganizational Context

Grand challenges and wickedproblems call for interorganizational collaboration strategies to understandproblem complexity and identify potential solutions. Such strategies pushforward beliefs that multiple stakeholders and societal organizationscollectively can create better and more desired futures. This conceptual paperadvances our understanding of organizational boundary in the context ofinterorganizational interaction by asking and answering: What organizationalboundaries are in an interorganizational context and what happens toorganizational boundaries when two organizations interact? Crossfertilizingboundary literature with a metaphysical debate in philosophy about the relationof contact when a boundary demarcates two entities, we identify three scenariosthat could happen to their organizational boundaries when two organizationsinteract: 1) one of the organizational boundaries dissolve into context, 2)organizational boundaries remain separate, and 3) organizational boundariesmerge into one. In addition, we propose clarifying, separating, and assemblingas three main processes to transmute different individual and subjectivecategorization of "us" and "them" from differentorganizations into a collective and objective demarcation of responsibilitiesand patterned behaviors across organizations. We discuss how our conceptualpropositions contribute to understanding and facilitating interorganizationalcollaborations.