Consistency of IBS emergence results across adequate FE thresholds

Ascertain whether adopting different adequate thresholds on the distribution of informational boundary-spanning Function Executions (FEs) yields different results when studying the emergence of Informational Boundary Spanners (IBSs), and rigorously characterize any dependence of conclusions on the specific adequate threshold chosen.

Background

After outlining criteria that multiple thresholds could satisfy, the authors recognize that more than one adequate threshold may exist for identifying emergent IBSs. This raises concern about whether conclusions about IBS emergence might depend on the particular adequate threshold selected.

To address this, the authors later analyze multiple percentiles (30th–80th) and compare outcomes; however, their explicit statement identifies the question of threshold-dependent results as open at the point of introducing the measurement approach.

References

These two criteria are sufficient to find multiple adequate thresholds rather than a single one (in this case those between the 30th and 80th percentiles), leaving an open question as to whether adopting different adequate thresholds will provide different results when studying the emergence of IBSs.

— Learning to connect in action: Measuring and understanding the emergence of boundary spanners in volatile times  (2405.11998 - Nespeca et al., 2024) in Section 7.1, Experiment 0: Measuring the emergence of informational boundary spanners