Paper presented at the Dutch HRM conference 2011

1. Coordinating across boundaries
The importance of members' personalities

2. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Acknowledgements
Multi-team effort:
Department of HRM & OB, University of Groningen
Thomas A. de Vries, Frank Walter & Gerben S. van der Vegt
Department of Social Psychology, University of Tilburg
Inge Visser, Christel Rutte
Faculty Military Sciences, Netherlands Defense Academy
Ad L. W. Vogelaar
TNO Behavioural and Societal Sciences
Rick van der Kleij & Peter J. M. D. Essens

3. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Our research: Purpose
Help the Netherlands Armed Forces to manage boundaries and to
bridge breakdowns in organization networks (e.g., staffs) that hinder
performance
Literature research, interviews with key personnel, observations
during field exercises, and lab experiments

4. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Boundary spanners
Boundary theory: Crucial role of individuals in establishing and
maintaining interorganizational relationships: boundary spanners*
Boundary spanning: Social behaviors to manage interactions across
boundaries and bridge breakdowns
Several studies demonstrated the importance of individual
communication roles within organizations
Highly influential in shaping and facilitating network form
Help overcome information asymmetries and breakdowns in networks
* networker, broker, collaborator, cupid, civic entrepreneur, boundroid, sparkplug,
collabronaut, informational intermediaries, and catalysts

5. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Barriers to integration
Functional or divisional boundaries;
Physical distance (even floors in a building);
Hierarchical levels; and
Project or key account team lines.

6. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Integration mechanisms
Organization design and personnel movement
Organization structure, team composition, roles, responsibilities
Training
Interface ‘management’ groups and integration teams
Work procedures and processes
Interface contracts
Rewarding systems and work rotation
Participant and manager mediation (e.g., liaison)
Improved information and communication technologies
Browning, T. R. (1998). Integrative Mechanisms for Multiteam Integration: Findings from Five Case Studies.
System Engineering, 1, 95-112.

7. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
The liaison as integration mechanism
Boundary spanners are of crucial importance to effective integration in
networked operations
To achieve the best utilization of resources or employment of services
of one organization by another
Usually part of the organization embeds a LNO in another part of the
organization to provide face-to-face coordination (emigrant)
LNO’s main task is to make sure that the interaction between parts of
the organization are optimal
Monitoring, coordinating, communicating, advising, assisting and reporting

8. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Current study: personality of liaisons
A liaison is a sociable or people-person: externally oriented?
Extraversion personality trait
i.e., being sociable, talkative, assertive, and active
We suggest that boundary spanners’ similarity in extraversion
communicates a compatible approach to coordination, which elicits
boundary spanning and, in turn, enhances perceived boundary
spanning effectiveness.
Similarity-attraction paradigm (Byrne, 1997)
Person feels attracted to other persons with whom he or she perceives to
share similar characteristics or attitude

9. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Why extraversion?
Unlike other personality traits (e.g., agreeableness, neuroticism,
openness to experience, and conscientiousness), B’s extraversion is
relatively easy to identify and may therefore assist A’s assessment of
B’s similarity
Not only may B’s extraversion be readily assessable, it can also
provide A with rich information about B’s attitudes towards tasks in
work-related contexts.
Extraversion is related to attitude towards problem solving, decision-making
and task execution.
Similarity in extraversion can reveal A’s compatibility and coherence of
interaction styles with those of unfamiliar members.

10. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Current study: hypotheses
H1: Extraverts-extraverts and introverts-introverts dyads engage in
more interaction, develop more effective initial interaction patterns,
and perceived more natural, smooth, and relaxed interaction, as
compared to mixed dyads of introverts-extraverts
H2: A’s boundary spanning behavior relates to B’s evaluation of A’s
effectiveness as a boundary spanner.
A’s boundary-spanning behavior may indicate his or her commitment to B’s
team and thereby show B that maintaining the relationship with A is
worthwhile, equitable, productive and satisfying effort.

11. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Research model
E xtraversion B
H1 A 's B oundary H2 A 's B oundary
S panning
E xtraversion A S panning
B ehavior tow ards
E ffectiveness
B

12. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Method
76 participants in 19 multiteam systems
Distributed two 2-member component teams:
1 boundary spanner and 1 non-boundary spanning team member
Study focuses on the 38 persons in boundary spanning positions.
Boundary spanners (A and B) acted as representatives of their teams
and could contact each other through email
Non-boundary spanners could only send emails within their
component team.

13. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Task
Develop a plan on the basis of complex, regularly updating, and
ambiguous information to evacuate a group of people from a hostile
area
Within each component team, each member is assigned to a specific
role that requires unique expertise and has unique responsibilities.
These roles correspond to important functional domains in the
military: Intelligence and logistics
Driven by a real-time scenario, messages are sent to team members,
and information is selectively made available on multiple websites
during the time span of the task

14. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Multiteam Research Environment: PLATT*
PLATT: Flexible software platform for experimental team research
Two components:
Modular software architecture (JADE agent platform)
Research-specific scenarios
Software architecture is research question independent and
guarantees large degree of flexibility
Scenario development is driven by research question and based on
research model
* Kamphuis, W., Essens, P. J. M. D., Houttuin, K., & Gaillard, A. W. K. (2010). PLATT: A flexible platform for experimental research
on team performance in complex environments. Behavior Research Methods, 42 (3), 739-753.

15. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries

16. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries

17. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Measures
A and B’s extraversion.
10-item bipolar extraversion self-report measure taken from Goldberg's
(1992) International Personality Item Pool.
A’s boundary spanning behavior towards B.
The number of emails participants in boundary-spanning positions (A) sent
to their boundary-spanning partner (B).
Emails that A sent to B, forwarded to B, and replied to B.
B’s perception of A’s boundary spanning effectiveness.
Subset of Richter, Scully, and West's (2005) Intergroup Effectiveness Scale
to measure A’s responsiveness (2-items), viability (2 items), and resource
exchange (2-items) towards B

18. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations
r
Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5
1. Age 24.89 4.48
2. Gender .48 .50 -.08
3. Extraversion A 4.95 .85 .11 -.27†
4. Extraversion B 4.95 .85 -.14 -.03 -.15
5. Boundary Spanning Behavior A 6.95 .55 -.15 .04 .04 .06
6. Boundary Spanning Effectiveness 3.06 .54 .02 -.23† -.04 .05 .361*
Note: N = 38 individuals nested in 19 boundary spanning relations.
† p < .10; * p < .05; ** p < .01

19. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
Boundary Spanning boundaries
Behavior
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Variables entered B Std. B Std. B Std.
Err. Err. Err.
Age -.42 .45 -.41 .46 -.74 .48
Gender -.64 .55 -.63 .58 -.74 .41
Extraversion A .07 .59 .15 .50
Extraversion B .16 .56 .15 .48
Extraversion A * Extraversion B 2.51*** .68
Δχ2 (df) 2.20 (2) .09 (2) 11.54*** (1)
Note: N = 38 individuals nested in 19 boundary spanning relations.
† p < .10; * p < .05; ** p < .01

20. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
12,0
10,0
8,0
A's Boundary Spanning
6,0
B's Extraversion
High
4,0
B's Extraversion
Low
2,0
0,0
Low High
A's Extraversion

21. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Boundary Spanning Effectiveness
Model 1 Model 2
Variables entered B Std. Err. B Std. Err.
Age .01 .08 .05 .08
Gender -.03 .10 .05 .09
Boundary Spanning Behavior .23* .09
Δχ2 (df) .16 (2) 5.81 * (1)
Note: N = 38 individuals nested in 19 boundary spanning relations.
† p < .10; * p < .05; ** p < .01

22. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Conclusions
H1: Results indicate that extraversion similarity between a boundary
spanner and his or her partner is associated with increased levels of
boundary spanning behavior directed towards that partner.
H2: Boundary spanning behavior is associated with the partner’s
perceptions of the responsiveness, viability, and information exchange
of the respective boundary spanner

23. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Study limitations
Students, not military personnel
Although we build on the similarity-attraction paradigm as implicit
mechanism that explains our results, we did not directly measure this
mechanism.
Relatively small sample
Statistical power to low to dismiss tests that were not statistically significant.
Lab study no field research
Replication studies in organizational settings are needed before generalization
is warranted.

24. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Theoretical & practical implications
Study contributes to boundary theory by exploring the dyadic-level
foundations of boundary-spanners’ perceptions of effectiveness.
Team design: how to staff multiteam systems
Selection & training of personnel: focus on similarity?

25. Dr. Rick van der Kleij
Coordinating
across
boundaries
Thanks for your attention
Questions?
More information:
Dr. Rick van der Kleij,
Research Scientist Behavioural and Societal Sciences at TNO
Electronic mail: Rick.vanderKleij@tno.nl