Protecting Their Turf: When and Why Supervisors Undermine Employee Boundary Spanning

The benefits boundary spanners offer organizations by bridging information silos are well documented. However, informational boundary spanning also implies crossing organizational territories, as employees seek advice from others outside their supervisors’ control. Applying a territoriality theory lens, we develop new insights about when and why supervisors may view their subordinates’ informational boundaryspanning activities unfavorably and attempt to undermine boundary spanners. We argue that undermining results from supervisors perceiving the boundary spanning of their employees as weakening their control over their organizational territory. We further argue that subordinates who seek advice across organizational boundaries without also seeking advice from their supervisor are more likely to be seen by their supervisors as having negative intentions when engaging in boundary spanning, which increases their risk of being undermined. We find support for our arguments in a field study and in a scenario experiment. Our results provide new insights into the potentially negative reactions from supervisors toward employees who engage in boundary spanning. We discuss how these insights contribute to the boundary spanning literature, to territoriality theory, and to the leadership literature.