Boundary spanners in the orchestration of resources : global-local complementarities in action

This research focuses on managerial roles and practices in the local–global deployment of the orchestration of
resources. We aim at understanding how local and global managers contribute to ‘sensing’, ‘seizing’ and
‘reconfiguring’ in a transnational firm. We offer an exploratory, explanatory and theory-building case study and
an abductive method grounded in the microfoundations of managerial activities. The field research develops inside
THALES business units. We obtain two main conclusions that are consistent with our abductive method: we
characterize how the boundary-spanning function serves the orchestration of resources and highlight the importance
of team and network boundary-spanning modalities. We identify the complementarities between local and global
boundary spanners, and we show that rules create the framework suited to empowering the dynamics of team or
network boundary spanning at the local and global levels.