This will be updated from time to time, and annoted @when when it is. Nothing will be quietly overwritten - all changes will be logged - but it will evolve as I develop this idea further.
Added 10/10/25:
This may sound related to the traveling theory literature (Said), but it addresses a different problem. Traveling theory describes how concepts transform as they move across cultures, disciplines, or historical moments. Organizing constructs aren't about movement through time or distance. They're about providing a stable mapping logic within complex situations where multiple levels and domains operate simultaneously. For instance, adding value can map community participation to individual mental health; the structural logic holds even as the scale and content shift. The challenge isn't how concepts survive distance, but whether they can maintain enough structural integrity to guide understanding and decision-making across the levels and perspectives that coexist in a single problem space.
I don’t think so. Boundary objects are intentionally flexible enough that each stakeholder can connect their own meaning to them. Organizing constructs, by contrast, hold a structured coherence that spans with a certain amount of fidelity across levels. Still, there are similiarites, and I’m not an expert in boundary objects. Perhaps they could be understood as a particular class of boundary object?
This is live thought, not an empirical distilliation. But at the moment, I’d say: