Boundary Challenges and the Work of Boundary Spanners

Abstract

A key part of the discussion of the future public service workforce and the broader discourse on public sector modernization and transformation has been the centrality of cross-boundary working. The activity relates as much to the old roles that Dickinson and Sullivan (2014) set out—the expert, the regulator, the engager, the reticulist—as it does to the new ones—the commissioner, the curator, the foresighter, and the storyteller (see Chap. 1). More and more governments around the world have become interested in how to work more effectively across a range of boundaries.