What is E-Collaboration?

Electronic collaboration (e-collaboration) is operationally defined here as collaboration using electronic technologies among different individuals to accomplish a common task (Kock & D’Arcy, 2002, 2001). This is a broad definition that encompasses not only computer-mediated collaborative work, but also collaborative work supported by other types of technologies that do not fit most people’s definition of a “computer,” such as the telephone, which is not, strictly speaking, a computer – even though some of today’s telephone devices probably have more processing power than some of the first computers back in the 1940s. Another example is the teleconferencing suite, whose main components are cameras, televisions and telecommunications devices. The above operational definition, which I will use as a basis to discuss other related issues in this article, is arguably very broad. Yet, it is probably clearer than the general view of e-collaboration in industry, which some may also see as a bit unfocused. For example, some developers of e-collaboration tools, such as Microsoft Corp. and Groove Networks, emphasize their technologies’ support for the conduct of electronic meetings over the Internet. There seems to be a concern by those developers with offering features that make electronic meetings as similar to face-to-face meetings as possible. ABSTRACT