Internal and External Communication, Boundary Spanning, and Innovation Adoption: An Over-Time Comparison of Three Explanations of Internal and External Innovation Communication in a New Organizational Form

This research report compares three differing explanations of the dynamic interre lationships between internal and external innovation-related communication in a new organizational form. In the functional specialization explanation, individuals are said to focus on the mix of internal and/or external communication dictated by their formal positions. The communication stars explanation suggests that indi viduals maintain similar levels of communication in both networks. The cyclical model posits a more dynamic pattern that shifts back and forth between internal and external communication, depending on the consequences of their prior commu nication behavior. The new organizational form examined for three years was the Cancer Information Service, a geographically dispersed federal government health information program. Our results indicated that there was a lagged effect for the communication stars explanation.