In our research project we are highly influenced by the Dutch researcher Sanne F. Akkerman and her colleagues and their research on boundary crossing and boundary objects in (vocational) education. Like many others in the field, we have benefited greatly from Akkerman & Bakker’s (2011) excellent review entitled Boundary Crossing and Boundary Objects, and I’ll return to this in future posts.
Nonetheless, other researchers have been studying these concepts from other perspectives, and I recently came across what turns out to be a PhD study (Marheineke, 2016) on the use of boundary objects in virtual collaboration, which seems very promising in relation to our current focus on ICT-mediated boundary objects.
In this study, Marheineke provides an interesting literature review on the use of different types of virtual boundary objects. In his work, Marheineke is inspired by Carlile’s (2004, 2002) typology, which we have been studying as well. However, as Marheineke states “emerging interest in the phenomenon of boundary object(s) has led to many definitions in the literature” (p. 80).
I have yet to study Marheineke’s research in detail, but so far I’m delighted to find many interesting and relevant tables e.g.:
Part of table 3: Selected definitions on the term “boundary object”
(Marheineke, 2016, p. 80-81)
Part of table 7: Boundary objects structuring collaboration
(Marheineke, 2016, p. 95-96)
/Mariis
References
Carlile, P.R. (2004). Transferring, Translating, and Transforming: An Integrative Framework for Managing Knowledge Across Boundaries.
Carlile, P.R. (2002). A Pragmatic View of Knowledge and Boundaries: Boundary Objects in New Product Development.