Collaborative Knowledge Workers: Web Tools and Workplace Paradigms Enabling Enterprise Collaboration 2.0

This paper investigates the role of Web 2.0 technologies in establishing networked forms of collaboration across organisational boundaries. Emerging forms of collaborative working are explored, to enable identification of emerging trends in web technologies and a better understanding of the actual collaboration problems of knowledge workers. Several collaborative work styles are presented outlining the different co-existing collaboration models and exploring their success conditions. One of the emerging styles of collaborative working is communication and collaboration driven by individual interactions enabling human networking. Focusing on working routines as a key construct in this research, three case studies show the close interrelation between working routines and collaboration tools, and demonstrate the potential for increasing the productivity of knowledge workers. Existing collaboration tools do not support actual collaboration patterns in an effective and efficient way. Emerging Web 2.0 technologies demonstrate their potentially significant role in shaping collaborative working environments. Based on examples from emerging forms of Web 2.0 technologies as well as case studies in actual collaborative work processes, we propose new models of person-based collaboration and study the way on how they are embedded in organizational networks through an elaborated scenario on complex project management. The paper concludes in discussing open problems and proposing research themes in the area of networked collaboration of knowledge workers.