Collaborative Working Environments for Supporting Network Innovations

Increased vertical and horizontal integration of enterprises is seen as one of the critical success factors for the future development of the agri-food sector. This integration can be stimulated by creating innovation-oriented initiatives in networks that collaborate on problems related e.g. to quality planning, improvements in logistics or tracking and tracing. Collaborative working environments – systems for supporting collaboration in spatially distributed groups – enable knowledge and experience exchange by providing functionalities for supporting real-time and asynchronous communication, coordination or information and identity management. Implementation of the new technologies and functionalities (e.g. microblog, folksonomies) leads to design of an environment where human-centric development is in focus and new potential emerges. This paper will discuss research on conceptualization, design and evaluation of the collaborative platform for supporting horizontal and vertical communities aimed on fostering network innovations.