Boundary object efficacy: The mediating role of boundary objects on task conflict in global virtual project networks

• Compared conflict duration and boundary object use.
• Early reference to boundary objects reduced conflict identification duration.
• Repeated reference to boundary objects reduced conflict resolution duration.
• Boundary objects were used more often in global networks.
• Reduction in conflict duration was larger for global networks.

As project-based industries such as Architecture, Engineering and Construction globalize, workers require strategies for managing conflict in virtual project networks. Our aim in this paper is to explore the efficacy of boundary objects as tools to mediate conflict in culturally-diverse, distributed networks. Based on annotated recordings for eight networks of graduate student engineers, we demonstrate that different interactional patterns between distributed engineers and boundary objects can lead to a reduction in conflict duration. We did not observe higher levels of conflict for global compared to domestic networks, but did discover that, regardless of network diversity, networks that interacted with the boundary objects in certain ways were able to identify and resolve conflicts more quickly. Our findings have important implications for theories of conflict management and boundary object efficacy in addition to practical applications to support conflict management in global virtual project networks.