Bringing Organizing (Back) in: How and why organizing matters for boundary work?

Health care organizations are increasingly confronted with demographic challenges combined with severe staff shortages as well as increased specialization and fragmented services creating complex patient pathways that span professions, disciplines, organizational units, and geographical locations. The concept of boundary work has received growing attention from organizational scholars as it offers a theoretical lens for studying how professionals work together in complex patient pathways and its impact on professional boundaries, identities, and projects. However, the role of organizing, organizational form and conditions for boundary work remains under-researched relative to its significance. Based on a discussion of current research, the paper argues that the interplay between organizing and boundary work practices has not been sufficiently examined to theorize how and why organizing matters for these important work practices, and thus, that this needs to be examined further. Accordingly, the paper suggest potential avenues for future boundary work research.