ABSTRACT
Mathieu, Marks, and Zaccaro (2001) were among the first to identify that although the environment external to the team has been featured in several theoretical frameworks (Gladstein, 1984; Hackman & Morris, 1975; Tannenbaum, Beard, & Salas, 1992), little is actually known about the influence of teams on other teams (i.e., how teams interact as a distinct activity system in the coordinated performance of tasks aimed at achieving a set of common outcomes). Their groundbreaking work, appearing in the Handbook of Industrial, Work, and Organizational Psychology, Volume 2, established the theoretical underpinnings of multiteam systems research and serves as the foundation for a growing body of empirical work. As described by the authors, “To date, no conceptualization has addressed a configuration of tightly coupled teams, contained either within a single organization or across organizations, working interdependently as a unique entity towards a single superordinate goal” (Mathieu et al., 2001, p. 293). We add a further caveat to this statement: To date, no conceptualization has holistically addressed boundary spanning in the specific domain of multiteam systems (MTSs). Thus, the objective of this chapter is to do just that.
