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Boundary Spanning and Team Innovativeness: The Role of Teams' Technology Portfolios

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Listed:
  • Chiara Zisler
  • Patricia Palffy
  • Harald Pfeifer
  • Kerstin Pull
  • Uschi Backes-Gellner

Abstract

This paper introduces teams' technology use as a contingency factor for the link between teams' boundary-spanning activities - such as regularly maintaining firm external or firm internal contacts, or memberships in multiple teams - and team innovativeness. Using novel, detailed data on the technology use of teams in a representative sample of over 3,500 German firms, we derive distinct technological portfolios at the team level, comprising comprehensive tech use portfolios with advanced artificial intelligence (AI) applications, minimalistic tech use portfolios, and focused tech use portfolios heavily reliant on specialized technologies, such as Big Data or IT security. We find that the effectiveness of team boundary spanning in increasing team innovativeness strongly depends on a team's technological portfolio. While boundary spanning is more vital for team innovativeness with either minimal or comprehensive technology use, it is less relevant for focused-tech teams. Our results emphasize the critical interplay between a team’s technological portfolio and the link between boundary-spanning activities and team innovativeness. We provide insights into how teams can better align their boundary-spanning activities with their technological portfolios to support team innovativeness.

Suggested Citation

  • Chiara Zisler & Patricia Palffy & Harald Pfeifer & Kerstin Pull & Uschi Backes-Gellner, 2025. "Boundary Spanning and Team Innovativeness: The Role of Teams' Technology Portfolios," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0243, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).
    • Handle: RePEc:iso:educat:0243
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