eprintid: 3513
rev_number: 5
eprint_status: archive
userid: 1
dir: disk0/00/00/35/13
datestamp: 2021-07-13 05:50:30
lastmod: 2021-07-13 05:50:30
status_changed: 2021-07-13 05:50:30
type: thesis
metadata_visibility: show
sword_depositor: 1
creators_name: Oosterveld, Maurice
creators_id: S2767155
creators_email: mauoos96@gmail.com
title: Breaking Barriers To Communication: Using boundary spanning activities to facilitate integration in IRBM projects
ispublished: unpub
full_text_status: public
abstract: Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) attempts to integrate spatial and temporal scales, along with stakeholder objectives in river management projects. While this does more justice to the complexity and interconnectedness of projects, it also creates new institutional and communicative barriers. Boundary spanning is a useful tool in overcoming these barriers. However, there are knowledge gaps concerning the effectiveness, interrelatedness, and sequencing of boundary spanning activities – this is partly due to low awareness of context significance, and the frequent conceptualisation of boundary spanning as a holistic concept with interchangeable components. 

This thesis researched how boundary spanning activities facilitated the integration of objectives during the planning phase of IRBM projects, using a granular approach and qualitative methods. The contextual relations are perceived as boundary types to which boundary spanning activities were applied, namely syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic boundaries. Further, the activities needed to be distinguished too, which are information transferring, translating, coordinating, co-creating, lubricating, representing, and guarding. 

These boundary spanning characteristics and their contributions to integration were analysed in two cases within the Belgian Sigmaplan. Droogdokkenpark is the combination of flood defence and an urban greening project, while Beneden-Nete is a comprehensive redevelopment of multiple flood areas and wetlands. In both cases, a method triangulation of interviews and documentary analysis was applied to discover the abovementioned variables. 

Information transferring, translating, coordinating, lubricating, and representing have directly affected integration, the variance of which can be explained by contextual factors. Integration is also facilitated by boundary spanning activities shifting discourses, preventing devolvement of boundaries, and facilitating each other. For future research into the effectiveness of boundary spanning activities, granular methods and an awareness of conditional factors such as boundary types should be adopted.
date: 2021
pages: 98
thesis_type: master
degree_programme: EIP
tutors_name: Kempenaar, J.
tutors_name: Brink, M.A. van den
tutors_organization: Fac. Ruimtelijke wetenschappen, Basiseenheid Planologie
tutors_organization: Fac. Ruimtelijke wetenschappen, Basiseenheid Planologie
tutors_email: J.Kempenaar@rug.nl
tutors_email: M.A.van.den.Brink@rug.nl
security: validuser
keywords_local: Boundary spanning
keywords_local: Boundary spanning activities
keywords_local: Boundary types
keywords_local: Conditional factors
keywords_local: Sigmaplan
keywords_local: Integrated River Basin Management
language_iso: en
agreed_repository: yes
date_issued: 2021-07-01
citation:   Oosterveld, Maurice  (2021) Breaking Barriers To Communication: Using boundary spanning activities to facilitate integration in IRBM projects.  Master thesis.   
document_url: https://frw.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/3513/1/MauriceOosterveld_BreakingBarrierstoCommunication.pdf