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Today, the power of the Internet extends far beyond research, data collection, and news feeds. Companies can engage clients in healthy dialog, create brand evangelists and empower employees to promote your company to audiences previously inaccessible.

Research article o the implementation of CoPs, Very good assessment tools for measuring collaboration

Research on virtual cillaboration

Collection of links and research papers on Collaboration

Global virtual teams are internationally distributed groups of people with an organizational mandate to make or implement decisions with international components and implications. They are typically assigned tasks that are strategically important and highly complex. They rarely meet in person, conducting almost all of their interaction and decision making using communications technology. Although they play an increasingly important role in multinational organizations, little systematic is known about their dynamics or effectiveness. This study built a grounded theory of global virtual team processes and performance over time. We built a template based on Adaptive Structuration Theory (DeSanctis and Poole 1994) to guide our research, and we conducted a case study, observing three global virtual teams over a period of 21 months. Data were gathered using multiple methods, and qualitative methods were used to analyze them and generate a theory of global virtual team dynamics and effectiveness. First, we propose that effective global virtual team interaction comprises a series of communication incidents, each configured by aspects of the team's structural and process elements. Effective outcomes were associated with a fit among an interaction incident's form, decision process, and complexity. Second, effective global virtual teams sequence these incidents to generate a deep rhythm of regular face-to-face incidents interspersed with less intensive, shorter incidents using various media. These two insights are discussed with respect to other literature and are elaborated upon in several propositions. Implications for research and practice are also outlined.

More structure can be better than more freedom to foster collaboration. Yet, it is not the goals a team leader needs to define but the roles of each team member need to be clarified so they are well understood by all.

From the post: "We spend our lives inside buildings, our thoughts shaped by their walls. Nevertheless, there's surprisingly little research on the psychological implications of architecture. How do different spaces influence cognition? Is there an ideal kind of architectural structure for different kinds of thinking?"

Virtual teams, although relatively new to the global business landscape, are already recognized as a boon to international organizations. Without the time, cost and hazards of travel, groups can now share information, chat, innovate and make decisions together. Creating effective virtual teams has proved to be more difficult than expected. Managers cannot simply create high-performance by assigning members and 'letting them run'. Without careful structuring, support and attention to processes, virtual teams do not achieve their potential and may not even get off the ground. Here we focus on four of the most important challenges: effective communication, relationship building, managing conflicts and leadership.

In a lightweight study of virtual teams, Stanford management science researcher Pamela Hinds found that 6 months after virtual team members participated in an intense week-long team-building retreat there was zero correlation to their ability to work together. Hinds believes that in order to increase a group's relational coordination or ability to problem-solve through mutual respect and open communication, members need to "know-who" each other are in their work contexts. Bringing people who don't usually see each other to do team-building exercises in a neutral hotel doesn't help because Hinds points out, "the truth is we don't work in neutral territory." She emphasizes, "Learning to work together is learning how people work, not just what kind of beer do you like," even though she adds, "that's useful information."