How can Dynamic Virtual Teams Use Boundary Spanning for Sustainable Innovation?

Past research demonstrates that boundary spanning, e.g. in industry-academic collaboration, can lead to innovation but it can also be linked to challenges regarding coordination on a team level. Meanwhile, little is known on how can teams coordinate their boundary spanning activity in-between the team units to achieve innovation successfully. This is particularly important as the modern dynamic context of virtual collaboration on a global scale combined with the sustainability crisis requires novel coordination approaches. In this research, we explore this gap by studying how can dynamic virtual teams use boundary spanning for sustainable innovation in project collaborations between industry and academia. The results of our multiple embedded case studies (2 project editions involving 14 teams in total) based on triangulated qualitative data suggest that in dynamic virtual teams, “fluid coordination” based on inter and intra-team activities might be an important moderating factor that enables the positive effect of boundary spanning on sustainable innovation. Our findings can provide a new understanding and practical solutions to the current problems of global sustainability and virtual team management across boundaries, and open the possibilities for further industry-academia collaborations.