Nov 23, 2024
Publications
E-Collaboration Systems: How Collaborative They Really Are
Electronic Collaboration Systems support employees in communication, coordination and collaboration tasks to work together to a common purpose to achieve business benefit. However, the marketplace of E Collaboration systems is multifaceted and is made up of various types of systems with differing emphasis. E Collaboration systems may be well suited for communication tasks or coordination tasks (e.g., collaboration systems with focus on project management), but lack support of collaborative tasks – and vice versa. To identify the extent of the support of “real” collaboration of E Collaboration systems, an analysis of collaboration features is applied to a number of E Collaboration systems. Although we focus entirely on collaboration features and present results on a number of E-Collaboration systems with above-average collaboration emphasis, significant differences in extent and quality of collaboration support can be detected.
Reviewing the E-Collaboration Marketplace
Electronic collaboration systems that support and enable communication, coordination and collaboration between people in shared projects, processes and teams within organisations and for cross-organisational use have significantly changed under the influence of Web 2.0 technologies and social software. The electronic collaboration marketplace is made up of numerous systems that offer a large variety of features. A classification approach is presented that classifies electronic collaboration systems and thus structures the diverse collaboration marketplace. Collaboration systems are evaluated and compared using a set of evaluation criteria that allow for the assessment of all major collaboration tasks. Thus completeness of systems as well as the main focus of applicability of individual collaboration systems is determined.
Enterprise 2.0 Adoption in SMEs: Application Areas, Motivation, Success Factors, and Barriers
Social software platforms provide an efficient means to support team collaboration and knowledge management within the enterprise. Especially small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may benefit from easy to use, light-weight enterprise 2.0 applications. A research approach is presented that is based on a cross-case analysis of case studies each of them representing an implementation of an emergent social platform within an organisation. The case studies are analysed by applying a structured approach to a qualitative content analysis. We determine which adoption strategies organisations use and identify applications areas and motivation factors of social software utilisation. Critical issues for the success of enterprise 2.0 initiatives like barriers and success factors are derived to provide organisations with deeper insight when starting their own enterprise 2.0 implementation.
Adoption, Motivation and Success Factors of Social Media for Team Collaboration in SMEs
In team collaboration we deal with collaboration among team members that may either belong to the same enterprise (intra-enterprise collaboration) or among team members belonging to different companies (e.g., in research projects). Social media provide an efficient and accessible means of encouraging and supporting team members working together on shared objects, i.e., performing collaborative tasks within these teams. Due to ease of use and access, especially small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may profit a lot from social media in team collaboration. Based on a number of case studies on the application of social media in SMEs, we analyze the adoption and implementation, the motivation of team members and their benefit, and success factors of the utilization of social media for team collaboration. To provide a set of case studies that allow for detailed comparison and in-depth analysis of multiple case studies, a standardized case study structure is introduced.
A Feature-based Analysis of Open Source Tools for Enterprise 2.0: Open Source Tools for Team Collaboration in SMEs
The marketplace of Enterprise 2.0 tools that support knowledge workers within companies to work together on cognitive tasks and share information and knowledge is diversified and offers commercial systems of varying complexity and functional range as well as open source software. Like commercial systems, open source tools for Enterprise 2.0 provide a broad range of functionality and offer a good alternative for organisations – especially for SMEs. This paper presents a study of the growing market for Enterprise 2.0 systems and focuses entirely on ones that are available under an open source license. We introduce a set of 97 individual features and criteria to assess a representative sample of open source Enterprise 2.0 tools. Our results show that the marketplace of open source tools for Enterprise 2.0 offers technically mature solutions with a broad range of functionality.