Crowding at the frontier: knowledge brokers, gatekeepers, boundary spanners and marginal-intersecting individuals

Organizations cannot survive without relations with their environment, which provides resources and markets for their products and services (Crozier & Friedberg, 1977). We propose to focus on research related to the role of individuals in such exchanges, and in particular, on gatekeepers and boundary spanners. Although research on these individuals is extremely rich and dates back to the early twentieth century, we found that the concepts still need a clarification. In order to achieve this goal, we proceed to an analysis of the literature which leads us to a proposition to delineate the roles of boundary spanners and gatekeepers, individuals who have an important function at the frontier of organizations. Most research on boundary spanners and gatekeepers has used a static perspective. We propose to consider these roles in a dynamic perspective, underlining the fact that the weight of the different functions of boundary spanners and gatekeepers can change over time, depending on personal characteristics and inclination, organizational and local contexts, and power games.