Works
- Bridging the Boundary: External Activity and Performance in Organizational Teams, Administrative Science Quarterly, 1992
In Tactics of Organizational Politics
Ideas
External activity of teams. Interviews with new-product team managers, log data, and questionnaires from 45 teams showed teams engaging in vertical communication aimed at molding the views of top management, which the authors call ambassador activity, along with horizontal coordination and scanning of the technical and market environment. The type of external activity, as well as its amount, predicted performance, and teams with a comprehensive external strategy did best over time.
What it explains
Caldwell and Ancona explain why teams that manage their standing with senior leaders, lobbying for resources and shaping how their work is seen, outperform teams that only do the work well. A team's case is made outside the team as much as inside it.