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92 Part One Organizations, Management, and the Networked Enterprise

FIGURE 2.7 REQUIREMENTS FOR COLLABORATION

Successful collaboration requires an appropriate organizational structure and culture, along with
appropriate collaboration technology.

processes, and systems are much more dependent on teams at all levels of the
organization to devise, to create, and to build. Teams are rewarded for their
performance, and individuals are rewarded for their performance in a team.
The function of middle managers is to build the teams, coordinate their work,
and monitor their performance. The business culture and business processes
are more “social.” In a collaborative culture, senior management establishes
collaboration and teamwork as vital to the organization, and it actually
implements collaboration for the senior ranks of the business as well.

TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGIES FOR COLLABORATION AND
SOCIAL BUSINESS

A collaborative, team-oriented culture won’t produce benefits without informa-
tion systems in place to enable collaboration and social business. Hundreds
of tools are designed to deal with the fact that, in order to succeed in our jobs,
we must depend on one another—our fellow employees, customers, suppliers,
and managers. Some high-end tools like IBM Lotus Notes are expensive, but
powerful enough for global firms. Others are available online for free (or with
premium versions for a modest fee) and are suitable for small businesses. Let’s
look more closely at some of these tools.

E-mail and Instant Messaging (IM)
E-mail and instant messaging (including text messaging) have been major
communication and collaboration tools for interaction jobs. Their software
operates on computers, cell phones, and other wireless handheld devices and
includes features for sharing files as well as transmitting messages. Many

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