ABSTRACT
In the literature on innovation, boundary-spanning communication is considered to be a key to successful management of innovation. Communication between individuals or organisational units tends to occur more frequently within certain boundaries than across them. Boundaries of inter-personal or inter-organisational communication exist at different levels both within and outside a business firm. Intra-firm boundaries are found between project teams, functional departments, or product divisions, to name a few. As for boundaries external to firms, they are strengthened when firms are located at different regions or nations as well as when they operate in different industries or sectors. Within a group of individuals flanked by such a boundary, they show a strong tendency to assume similarity in terms of skills, educational backgrounds, and statuses, which in turn brews similarity in their norms and values. This tendency is in part embedded in the evolution of corporate organisations seeking for specialisation and efficiency. For instance, each functional department under the unitary form of enterprises (Chandler, 1977) gathers individuals specialising in similar areas of expertise, such as engineering, marketing, and accounting. Further, iterations of interaction and exchange of information between individuals within a group leads to a convergence of their norms, values, and behaviours through the creation of local languages (Rogers and Bhowmik, 1971; Rogers and Kincaid, 1981). The maturation of an industry or sector represents a case of this. An industry or sector consists of individuals with more similar mindsets towards the end of its life cycle after it has undergone earlier stages of creation of varieties in products, firms, and organisations, their replication, and their selection (Nelson, 1995; Metcalfe, 1998; Malerba, 2002).
