CfP: Focus Theme Section on 'E-Collaboration and Communication Systems' (19-4)

Guest Editors of the focus theme section:

• Kai Riemer (University of Muenster, Germany),
• Charles Steinfield (Michigan State University, USA),
• Doug Vogel (City University of Hong Kong, P.R. China).

Value creation in modern markets is increasingly carried out in collaborative arrangements such as business networks, clusters and alliances. Furthermore, work practices in organizations are undergoing significant changes due to trends of virtualization and the emergence of new communication technologies. In many organizations projects have become the prevalent way of working – people are often distributed across time, space, organizational, and cultural boundaries. At the same time organizations are increasingly dependent on the effective creation and sharing of knowledge within these dispersed work settings.

Against this backdrop, e-Collaboration as a topic refers to all issues of ICT-based collaboration within and between organizations. With the emergence of new often Internet-based communication and collaboration systems, organizations today possess the technological capabilities to manage a wide range of dispersed value creation activities. However, while technology vendors stress the new possibilities offered by their products for managing collaborations, the realities in distributed projects, virtual teams, and inter-organizational networks quite often paint a different picture. E-Collaboration is a complex, precarious, and too often rather ineffective undertaking. To this end, we need a better understanding of the challenges, inhibitors, enablers, and contextual contingencies of successful e-Collaboration initiatives. We also need to better understand the nature and particularities of e-Collaboration technologies and the unique requirements they pose in various social settings.

In doing so, we are especially interested in the usage of e-Collaboration technologies in inter-organizational collaborations. For example, many electronic marketplaces that started with the idea of supporting electronic trade transactions have come a long way and developed into platforms for enabling various inter-organizational value creation activities. Many inter-organizational platforms today are proffered with e-Collaboration technologies for supporting people collaborating in joint projects and processes. However, the particular challenges of these undertakings and the role of e-Collaboration technologies in such organizational settings is not well understood to date.

We are pleased to invite scholars from any methodological background to contribute papers that advance our knowledge of the diffusion, appropriation, usage, impact and role of e-Collaboration technologies, in the context of distributed projects, virtual teams and various types of inter-organizational networks. We welcome theoretical, conceptual, design-oriented and especially empirical contributions using both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Research efforts might focus on different organization levels such as teams, corporations, networks, and informal communities and on different e-Collaboration technologies. Typical e-Collaboration technologies reach from simple e-Mail, Instant Messaging, and social software tools to more sophisticated Web Conferencing, Project management, and integrated Unified Communications and Real-time Communication solutions.

Papers in this focus theme section might address, but are not limited to one or more of the following areas:

E-Collaboration activities, processes and scenarios

• E-Collaboration in business networks and strategic alliances
• E-Collaboration in virtual organizations
• E-Collaboration in distributed software development teams
• E-Collaboration in field service scenarios (mobile work contexts)
• E-Collaboration in disaster response and crisis management
• E-Collaboration in health care processes
• E-Collaboration in regional clusters
• E-Collaboration in open innovation initiatives and living labs
• E-Collaboration in the consultancy business
• E-Collaboration in multi-channel sales contexts (indirect sales)
   

E-Collaboration research issues

• Adoption, diffusion and appropriation of e-Collaboration technologies
• Presence and awareness in distributed ICT-based work contexts
• Credibility, trust and cooperation in distributed ICT-based work contexts
• The role of space, place, and time in distributed ICT-based work contexts
• Leadership in distributed ICT-based work contexts
• Decision making in distributed work groups and cross-organizational projects
• The role of e-Collaboration technologies in multi-project management
• The role of e-Collaboration technologies in knowledge management
• The role of e-Collaboration for agile software development methods
• Emergent virtual communities of practice within and across organizations
• Social networking using e-Collaboration technologies
• E-Collaboration technologies for facilitating e-learning
• The role of organizational culture in the proliferation of e-Collaboration

Additional topic suggestions are welcome. All papers will be peer reviewed and should conform to Electronic Markets' publication standards. Methodological and theoretical pluralism (empirical or theoretical work, qualitative research, design science, prototypes ...) is welcomed by the journal.

Full papers are invited to be submitted by 28. February 2009. All papers must be original, not published or under review elsewhere. If you would like to discuss any aspect of the focus theme section, please contact the Editor for the focus theme section.

Contact address: wikari@wi.uni-muenster.de or editors@electronicmarkets.org

Papers must be submitted via our electronic submission system. Instructions are available at http://www.electronicmarkets.org/authors.

Important deadlines:

• Submission deadline: 28. February 2009
• Acceptance decision: 15. May 2009
• Issue: Vol. 19, No. 4, November 2009

For further author instructions please go to the Authors section.