Organisational Conditions for Boundary Spanning in Public Health

Abstract

In this study, we examine how organisational conditions impact boundary spanning in public health to handle complex tasks. This policy field is characterised by extensive pressure for collaborative governance and boundary-spanning activities. Data from a 2019 web-based survey of all Norwegian public health coordinators (n = 428; response rate 60%) demonstrated the importance of boundary spanning “by architecture” for completing complex transboundary tasks, such as local government health overviews. Combinations of organisational conditions; organisational size, position size, position in the organisational hierarchy and formalised network arrangements, affected degrees of boundary-spanning and the ability to complete health overviews. The most important indirect organisational condition seemed to be position size. Organisational size is an important organisational predictor for position size, position in the organisational hierarchy and collaborative partners’ contact pattern. Large municipalities had higher coordination capacity, higher degrees of boundary spanning and more formalised structures for intersectoral collaboration. Organisational size correlated significantly with contact frequency between boundary spanners and internal and external professional expertise. Overall, boundary spanning is not influential per se, but different degrees of boundary spanning affected the completion of complicated transboundary task in public health.