The Boundaryless Organization

Citation

Ashkenas, R., Ulrich, D., Jick, T. and Kerr, S. (2002), "The Boundaryless Organization", Facilities, Vol. 20 No. 10, pp. 350-350. https://doi.org/10.1108/f.2002.20.10.350.3

In the past five years, since the first edition of The Boundaryless Organization, critical changes in the relationship between customers, employees, and a network of alliances and partners have emerged. These changes brought about the need to republish this thoroughly revised and updated edition of the book.

The Boundaryless Organization provides an excellent start to discovering the building blocks of organizations that can cope with the complex strategies needed in the future.

Success factors in the twenty‐first century include speed, flexibility, integration, and innovation. Managers must create organizations with sufficient critical mass that can move quickly and nimbly through the changing business terrain. To achieve these success factors, every firm needs to reshape the four boundaries which are identified as vertical, horizontal, external and geographic.

Although the concept of boundaryless behaviour sounds threatening and risky to organizations, it is about removing the restrictions, real and imaginary, imposed on individuals and teams by formal structures. Each of these boundaries needs appropriate permeability and flexibility. This allows information and resources to flow freely across the organization, providing the success factors needed to thrive in today’s business environment.

The book is organized into four parts that are devoted to four types of boundaries. It considers how these barriers both help and hinder organizations and how managers can loosen them or break them down when necessary. Each part contains a couplet of chapters, one to explain the boundary in question, and the other to provide specific tools and techniques one can use to enable permeable boundaries.

Despite the changing realities of the twenty‐first century, the authors’ basic messages and the tools and diagnostic materials that go along with them in the first edition have not changed. The book is refreshed by current examples, from GE, Schwab, Glaxo SmithKline, and other successful companies with updated case studies.

“The old question of status, role, organizational level, functional affiliation, and geographic location, all the traditional boundaries that managers have used for years to define and control the way they work, are much less relevant than getting the best people possible to work together effectively.” It is necessary to adopt new ways of working to lead boundaryless organizations.

The book is aimed at managers, consultants at every level and, in particular, leaders who can to foster permeability in the organization with a number of levers such as information, authority, competence, and rewards. In this respect the book may provide a valuable insight for facilities managers.