The study aims to explore empirical proxies of boundary spanning success by developing measurement for hierarchical alignment, goal alignment, and time lag for three boundary spanning activities occurring in enterprise social media. The study employs Generalized Linear Models (GLMs) and Linear Models (LMs) to test the effect of distinct boundary- spanning types and tie strength on each of the success measures. The findings show that strongly tied individuals who engage in information search activity can achieve boundary spanning success, as it is much easier for them to get the response in a short time compared to more weakly tied individuals. Trust as measured by symmetric (strong) tie thus can achieve boundary spanning success. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed.
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