EMERGENCE AND ROLE OF E-COLLABORATION TECHNOLOGIES

Emergence And Role Of E-Collaboration Technologies

Emergence And Role Of E-Collaboration Technologies

In the global economy, collaboration within groups of geographically dispersed knowledge workers is quickly becoming the locus of creativity and innovation. Advanced Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) that enable e-Collaboration enhance group work, especially when teams must share information and make decisions across business and national boundaries. These e-Collaboration technologies within multidisciplinary and technologically complex work groups are paving the way towards collaborative environments involving both human and artificial artefacts. Collaborative environments will orchestrate interaction within networks of workers, partners and customers to boost creativity and innovation.

E-collaboration technologies will supply seamless connectivity to allow work anywhere and anytime. Moreover, they will help to manage the complexity derived from the diversity of workers, knowledge and other resources that must coordinate effort on a collective creative task. E-Collaboration technologies will ensure access to contextualised services (such as shared digital images) and will assure easy interaction among team members.

Environments endowed by e-Collaboration technologies will provide access to expanded, shared experience and knowledge and facilitate meetings among team members to deliver more creative ideas. More participants can be involved in the innovation process, qualified by knowledge and not by proximity. User friendly "physual" (i.e., combining physical and virtual) collaborative environments will support the participation of previously unavailable expertise (e.g., from the elderly) into the creation of new innovative products.

To collaborate means “working together to produce something with benefits for both”. Therefore, in the current competitive context, collaboration can be a way to create value and innovate. Organizations share resources, share and exchange information and can overcome some of their weak points. Bittici et al (2005) mention that the collaborative organization refers not only to the supply chain, but also to networks and clusters, including collaboration in product development (chain design) and product support (support chain). The collaborative organization extends the concept of chains and strategic alliances, as each organization tries to maximize its performance. According to the author, the collaborative enterprise aims to optimize the whole system and the gains are divided among the partner companies. Bittici et al (2005) add that the collaborative enterprise is a knowledge-based organization that uses the capacities, competences and intellectual strengths of its partners to gain competitive advantage to maximize the performance of the global enterprise.

Related e-collaboration can be observed many theories have been used to understand ecommunication and e-collaboration behavior (Kock, 2004). According to Kock & Nosek (2005), e-collaboration has been defined in many ways, and this situation has been intensified by the emergence of an e-collaboration tools industry. The definition of the e-collaboration is “collaboration among individuals engaged in a common task using electronic technologies”. Based on the definition can be understood that, contrary to popular perceptions, e-collaboration is not limited to computer mediated communication (CMC). Cassivi (2006) stated that different roles may be attributed to collaboration tools, such as facilitating access to information, which affects knowledge creation capabilities, and assisting in the design of flexible supply ...