Consequences of Boundary Permeability on Organisational Outcomes: Investigating the Moderating Role of Culture and Self Construal

Boundaries are an inevitable consequence of cognitive categorisation, a basic cognitive process through which individuals simplify complex stimuli into meaningful categories (Abrams & Hogg, 1999). Boundaries are generally understood as the physical, temporal, emotional, cognitive, and relational demarcations that separate one entity from another (Ashforth, Kreiner, & Fugate, 2000; Nippert-Eng, 1996; Zerubavel, 1993). For instance, a national boundary usually refers to the border of a nation or country. In contrast, socio-psychological boundaries refer to different cultural norms used by members to guide their thoughts, emotions and behaviours. Boundaries have varying levels of permeability. Boundary permeability refers to the ease with which individuals can either mentally or physically enter or exit the group. For example, impermeable workgroup boundaries may restrict employees from entering the group and this can cause disruption to normal work processes. For many of us, however, socio-psychological boundaries are rather vague concepts. It is only when we encounter people from another culture that we realise many of the basic assumptions we have about human interactions simply do not work in different cultural contexts. Although boundary issues have been examined in a wide array of research domains, such as role transitions and intergroup relations, most of these studies examined behaviours in Western contexts. There has also been a dearth of research examining the role of boundary permeability in the workplace. Thus, given the important implications of boundaries on workplace processes and effectiveness, it is worthwhile investigating this issue using a cross-cultural perspective. The objectives of this thesis are three-fold. First, I identified the different types of workplace boundaries and boundary dimensions between Australian and Singaporean employees. Second, I examined the interactive relationships between boundary permeability and culture in predicting cooperation and workgroup identification. Finally, I examined the interactive relationships among cultural grouping, cultural group membership and workgroup membership in predicting level of trust and level of collaboration. In order to investigate these objectives, three studies were designed. Study 1 explored the nature of boundaries and boundary permeability using a semistructured interview with 20 employees from Singapore and Australia. Using a qualitative analysis, results revealed four boundary categories, each with two subcategories, except ethnic boundary which only has one category: collectivist versus individualist norm boundaries, ethnicity boundaries, relationship versus taskoriented work boundaries, and explicit versus implicit communication boundaries. Results also suggested that these cultural dimensions affected boundary permeability. Study 2 directly examined the effect of boundary permeability on workgroup identification and cooperation. In addition, the moderating role of culture (conceptualised in terms of cultural grouping and self-construal) on the relationship between boundary permeability and these outcomes was also investigated. Using a sample of 134 employees (consisting of 87 Chinese Singaporeans and 47 Anglo- Celtic Australians), results suggested that boundary permeability was positively related to cooperation but not to workgroup identification. Further analysis revealed that boundary permeability had a stronger effect on cooperation and workgroup identification for Singaporeans than Australians. In terms of self construal, results indicated that boundary permeability had a stronger effect on workgroup identification for individuals with higher interdependent self construal compared to individuals with lower interdependent self construal. Results indicated that there was a stronger relationship between boundary permeability and cooperation for employees with lower interdependent self-construal compared to those with higher interdependent self-construal. In Study 3, 240 university students (120 Australians, 120 Singaporeans) participated in an experiment which involved assessing hypothetical scenarios of cooperation with an in-group or out-group team member. First, boundary permeability was manipulated to examine whether high boundary permeability versus low boundary permeability would affect individuals intentions to cooperate and help. Results indicated that compared to Singaporeans, Australians intention to cooperate was higher in low boundary permeability than in high boundary permeability but this was not found for their intention to help. Second, the interactive effects among cultural grouping (Australians versus Singaporeans), cultural group membership (i.e., cultural in-group versus cultural out-group) and workgroup membership (i.e., members from ones own workgroup or in-group workgroup versus members from another part of the company or out-group workgroup) was examined in predicting level of trust and level of collaboration. Results suggested that there was a significant three way interaction among cultural grouping, cultural group membership and workgroup membership in predicting level of trust but not level of collaboration. Further analysis revealed that when members came from an out-group workgroup (i.e., from another part of the company, Australians accorded a higher level of trust than Singaporeans towards members of cultural out-group than in-group. In general, these results suggested that group membership and boundary permeability affected how Australians and Singaporeans cooperated and trusted one another. Overall, the present research program contributed to the literature in several ways. First, by integrating cross-cultural psychology, social identity theory and selfcategorisation theory, boundary definition in two cultural contexts could be investigated. Second, evidence was gathered suggesting that culture influences how workplace boundary permeability and group membership affected organisational outcomes. Implications of this research in terms of research and management practice are discussed