Online Collaborative Integration and Recommendations for Future Research

The concluding chapter offers the editors’ insights into the book chapters’ combined contribution. Using the editors’ Collaborative Integration Paradigm, they examine types of collaborations described, the electronic technologies used, and the kinds of research and theories discussed by contributing authors. They consider commonalities in electronic collaboration across sectors and the significance of interorganizational or intra-organizational structure. The editors recommend future research as well as theory-building needed to advance the field.

Collaboration in the Service of Knowledge Co-Creation for Environmental Outcomes, Science and Public Policy

Environmental sustainability and global climate change issues intensify the need for collaborations between scientists and policymakers. Working in virtual spaces exacerbates many of the challenges inherent in these collaborative efforts. Ideal collaborations promote social learning that delivers integrated knowledge through synergies that develop across institutional, occupational and other boundaries. However, impediments arise when individuals with different specializations and degrees of expertise inhabiting different physical and psychological spaces bring different problem-solving methods and presuppositions. Values affect the potential for synergy and the ultimate products of such collaborations. Addressing social learning challenges among different disciplinary traditions requires identifying and then addressing core differences. Through examining a study of occupational values and resulting behaviors of ocean environmental policy actors, this chapter considers collaborations through theories of discourse, actor involvement, social learning, and policy analytics and offers suggestions to improve knowledge co-creation as a potential aid to these critical issues and processes.

Collective Identity and Learning in a Virtual Team

This chapter introduces Media Synchronicity Theory as a means to examine the influence of technology use on the relationship between a multidimensional model of collective identity and its impact on the multidimensional team learning in virtual teams. The study was conducted in an educational setting over an academic semester. Hypotheses testing suggest that the basis for a team’s collective identity does impact team learning. The authors believe that a clearer understanding of the underlying relationships will enable academicians to improve their course offerings to provide more realistic representation of existing team tasks, technology use, and work-groups presently found in organizations.

Stepping into the Role of Professional Writer

A group of National Writing Project teachers from around the nation attended a Professional Writing Retreat in Santa Fe in 2004 and continued their collaboration. This chapter examines the progress of the group’s commitment to communicate by electronic means about writing about teaching. Teachers from the experimental group, those who answered the call to examine their continued involvement with the group, provide qualitative research narratives about how each responds as they help one another to step into the role of professional writer. Statistics gathered from both the experimental and a control group of teachers (who attended the same retreat but did not answer the survey) allow the reader to chart the teachers’ success in: (a) presenting together about being professional writers, (b) writing together as professional writers, (c) writing individually about teacher-practice, and (d) meeting at the National Writing Project’s Annual Meeting in order to continue to support each other’s work.

Collaborative Partnerships and the Application of ICTs in Secondary Education in South Africa

The purpose of this study is to examine the dynamics of collaborative partnership involving the private sector, government, and community groups in the application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for expanding access to and improving the quality of secondary education in South Africa. Based on the operations and projects of Mindset Learn channel in secondary schools in South Africa, the study explores the enabling factors for the innovative improvement of secondary schooling with ICTs. On the other hand, the study also focused on the challenges facing Mindset Learn innovative approach to secondary education as well as the prospects of the sustaining this model of educational development in South Africa and other countries in Africa. Qualitative data collection methods were used to gather data from key informants.

Scholarly Collaboration Across Time Zones

The barriers to global collaboration of yesteryear include country boundaries and time zones. Today, however, in a world where communication is thriving on new technologies, these barriers have been overcome, not only by the technology itself, but also by the collaborators in a desire (and need) to extend knowledge, seize opportunities, and build partnerships. This chapter reports on one such collaboration: a case study where the focus is the writing of a scholarly article between authors from Australia, England, and South Africa. The challenges of different time zones, academic calendars, and managing the collaboration are outlined in this chapter. Findings from the case study suggest that the key elements of success are related to individual and project management techniques, and not the technology per se. The constructivist learning theory, as well as the e-moderation model are supported by this work, and thus extend their application to the academic writing process.

Technology Enhanced Collaborative Leadership Development

This chapter presents a case study of the process of employing technology in a project involving the development and presentation of a unique leadership program for the not-for-profit sector in a major Canadian city. The project relied on telephone and Internet technology as a primary means of communication between the three women developing and delivering this program. The chapter provides a background on the development of the program; the ways in which technology was employed; and the problems and benefits of employing technology in doing this. Finally, it identifies the strategies and interpersonal skills found to be most effective in facilitating technology-enhanced collaboration, and makes recommendations for maximizing the benefits of using technology in the process of creating new approaches to leadership development. The chapter can contribute to the literature in the field of leadership development, collaborative program development and diversity management in the field of leadership.

2007 Leadership and Human Resources Training in Rwanda

This chapter originated as a reflection of the communication between U.S. facilitators and a Rwandan host as they ecollaborated in planning international leadership and human resources training for Rwandan leaders. The authors maintain that electronic collaboration or e-collaboration is a viable practice for use in effective communication with persons in developing nations. It can be used as a way to reduce the cost of providing support and services. For this action research project, facilitators accepted an invitation to train, collaborated to complete all planning via the Internet, and traveled to do the work successfully addressing all of the substantive requirements. In preparing this chapter, the authors have shared pre, during, and post work considerations hoping to make a case for increased use of e-collaboration in establishing effective work relationships and improved international communication. The chapter includes substantial details for context and the issues that necessitated the training.

The Limits of Anytime, Anywhere Customer Support

This chapter reviews research in distributed work, relating it to the way organizations manage collaboration between home-based customer support agents. The analysis focuses on the importance of shared identity to development of trust and social capital. The distributed work literature recognizes trust enables knowledge sharing through social exchange and gift giving activity. The discussion outlines two social norms—the norm of beneficence that encourages gift giving and the norm of reciprocity that encourages social exchange. These two norms provide a framework for understanding how knowledge sharing starts and continues in organizational relationships. The chapter next discusses the organizational strategies companies use to implement home-based customer support. The discussion concludes that the available research findings of applied studies of distributed work suggest that the most effective organizational strategy for home-based customer support enables knowledge sharing by blending face-to-face meetings, with other employees and management, and distributed work online.

Instrumental and Social Influences on Adoption of Collaborative Technologies in Global Virtual Teams

Recent advances in Web-based technologies along with investments in international outsourcing and offshore locations have unquestionably increased the importance of global virtual teams. However, because global virtual teams have their members dispersed in different countries and rely extensively on electronic communication to exchange information, complete tasks, and coordinate activities, their implementation is accompanied by challenges beyond those found in traditional teams whose members often meet face-to-face in the same cultural context. One such challenge has to do with cross-cultural collaboration. Although there is a sense that collaborative technologies offer the essential tools for supporting collaboration, it is unknown whether virtual members will actually adopt collaborative technologies in a cross-cultural setting. To gain knowledge about this potential endemic aspect of cross-cultural teamwork, one needs to examine the factors that influence the adoption of collaborative technologies in global virtual teams. Drawing on the work of organizations, cognitive theory, and information systems researchers, this study offers a framework that describes the key components underlying collaborative technology adoption in global virtual teams by integrating both social and instrumental aspects of group work.