BUS603: Managing People

Just as societies are collections of individuals, collaborative computing is the collection of existing and new hardware and software that enables people to communicate, share information, and work together. Collaboration can happen no matter where people are physically located and no matter whether they interact in real time or asynchronously.

The web supports intra- and inter-organizational collaborative decision making through collaboration tools and access to data, information, and knowledge from inside and outside the organization. Groupware tools can support decision making directly or indirectly, and they provide a mechanism for team members to share opinions, data, information, knowledge, and other resources. Different computing technologies support group work in different ways, depending on the purpose of the group, the task, and the time/place category in which the work occurs.

Groupware tools go by a variety of names, including group support systems (GSSs), group decision support systems (GDSSs), computer support for collaborative work (CSCW), electronic meeting systems (EMSs), collaborative systems, or simply teamware. Groupware products can be organized by their complexity and the length of the time they have been in the market. Level 1, groupware products support communications. Level 2 systems include software tools with statistical features designed to help groups solve complex, unstructured, problems. Level 3, systems in various stages of development, are behind the scenes software agents that can operate to keep projects on track as a virtual team member or serve to facilitate information gathering needs of group members.

The effectiveness of a collaborative technology depends on the location of the group members and on the time that shared information is sent and received. DeSantics and Gallupe proposed a framework for classifying IT communication support technologies. In this framework, communication is divided into four cells that are organized along the two dimensions of time and place. Groups, group work, and teamwork in organizations are proliferating. Consequently, groupware continues to evolve to support effective group work, mostly for communication and collaboration. Modern web-based ITs provide an inexpensive, fast, capable, and reliable means for supporting communications. But computers cannot support all communication areas. Networked computer systems, such as the Internet, intranets, extranets, and proprietary private networks, are the enabling platforms that support communication.