An Interagative Concept for Artifacts and Boundary Effects in Innovation Activities

The presented research focuses on inter-organizational innovation activities, where information systems (IS) enable the knowledge exchange between involved actors. The resulting interactions can be described with help of the boundary object concept. Boundary objects are generally studied as single information technology artifacts. Offering the view of boundary objects as elements of a boundary infrastructure, the integrative concept of “composite boundary objects” is developed, which comprises a portfolio of artifacts. A qualitative study has provided evidence that this new concept is able to extend the explanatory power of the boundary object idea in explaining coordinative effects.