Towards Purposeful Collaboration in E-Business:
A Case of Industry and Academia
John Perkins
1
and Sharon Cox
2
1
Newman College of Higher Education, Birmingham, B32 3NT, UK
2
Department of Computing, University of Central England in Birmingham, B42 2SU, UK
Abstract. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) helps to remove
barriers and improve mechanisms that support collaboration in e-business. This
paper proposes a model of purposeful collaboration analysis that helps identify
the extent to which ICT supports collaboration. It is argued that the ICT
components of e-business are necessary to support collaboration but in
themselves are often insufficient as enablers of collaboration. The model
encourages the examination of issues left unsupported by ICT and allows more
focused consideration of further initiatives that might be applied to improve
purposefulness of the collaboration task. The case of a retail manufacturer in a
long term e-business collaborative exercise with an academic institution is used
to illustrate the model. Concepts from the social practice literature are
identified that might contribute to a hybrid approach to addressing the gap
resulting between generic technology and situated business applications.
1 Introduction
The literature on e-business emphasises the role of ICT as an enabler and facilitator
of collaboration [15] and is rarely challenged. However, there are few attempts to
evaluate the extent to which collaboration is achieved through ICT. A discussion of
the meaning of collaboration within a specifically e-business context depends upon
the theoretical model of collaboration chosen. This paper describes a process that
encourages the iterative examination of the value added to collaborative practice by
ICT. This process adopts the model of collaboration proposed by theoreticians and
practical analysts of social practice theory. The foundation to this school of thought is
that the concept of organisational culture is most clearly expressed through the
recurrent activities and work practice that evolve and emerge from individuals and
groups striving to achieve expertise within a working community [18]; [11].
According to this theoretical model, specific examples of task activity within
individual working environments is the appropriate domain in which to study
collaborative practice. This orientation allows a process to be proposed that
juxtaposes the purpose of individual collaborative tasks with the appropriate ICT
tools to facilitate this task. Once task and facilitating ICT are identified, a qualitative
evaluation is possible of the extent to which ICT adds value to the collaboration.
Perkins J. and Cox S. (2005).
Towards Purposeful Collaboration in E-Business: A Case of Industry and Academia.
In Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Requirements Engineering for Information Systems in Digital Economy, pages 51-60
DOI: 10.5220/0001421400510060
Copyright
c
SciTePress
Limitations in ICT facilitation are then exposed and consideration is given to the
potential of of complementary socially oriented approaches. The paper concludes by
proposing a general, practice-centric approach to evaluating the role of ICT in
purposeful collaboration.
2 Definition of Collaboration
The notion of collaboration is a broad one. Webster’s dictionary definition gives two
meanings: ‘to work together, especially in a joint intellectual effort’ and ‘to cooperate
treasonably, as with an enemy occupation force in one’s country’ (www.websters-
online-dictionary.org). The first indicates that the meaning of the term is historically
and socially situated. It implies that the partners’ ‘joint-ness’ is equal and that they
share common goals, enjoy equal benefits and wield equal power. These initial
assumptions about the nature of collaboration appear to be contested by much
literature on observed practice in collaborative work situations [17]; [5]. The second
suggests that collaboration has not always occupied high moral ground.
Collaboration frequently appears to contain a strong competitive element. The notion
that collaboration can go too far and become tantamount to ‘fraternisation with the
enemy’ is another common feature of reports on collaborative practice [12]. The term
‘collaborate’ is often used interchangeably with ‘cooperate’. The same dictionary
defines this as ‘to work or act together toward a common end or purpose’, ‘to form an
association for common, usually economic, benefit’ and ‘to acquiesce willingly; be
compliant’. The first two definitions compare closely with the ‘working together’
definition of collaboration, but the third definition reveals the principal difference
between the terms. The implication of deference due and subsidiary status within
‘cooperation’ identifies the essential merit of the alternative term, ‘collaboration’ to
those who reject any overt element of subservience in their role. This paper proposes
an approach to identify the information requirements of such socio-technical systems,
exploring the relationship between ICT tools and collaborative practice.
3 Collaboration in E-Business
E-business systems are now an integral component of modern business (including the
business of education). The purpose of e-business is to handle trading of goods and
services without the need for physical contact between trading partners or agents. It
involves teams of practitioners dispersed geographically, organisationally and
culturally that need to operate as a community in order to enable the technical
infrastructure to work effectively. The traditional face-to-face approach to developing
mutual trust and a shared understanding of the dynamics of the trading system is
rarely available. Instead they develop practice within a technical system overlaid with
socio-cultural rules and driven by the interpretation of corporate and departmental
policy. This is what is referred to here as a collaborative system. Because e-business
systems are becoming so vital, the building and operation of collaborative systems
that support commercial and social purposes is critical.
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Communities using these systems are highly dependent upon sharing knowledge
that helps their members achieve the purpose of becoming accepted as effective
practitioners by the rest of their community. In Blackler’s terms they are about
embodied, embedded and encultured knowledge that is located not within individuals,
but distributed amongst a community of practitioners [4]. This reciprocal dependency
between practice and knowledge maintains the criticality of communication, co-
ordination and co-operation [2] in collaborative systems that perform satisfactorily.
Sharing of knowledge is highly dependant upon the establishment of trust within
practitioner communities and allows the community knowledge to be accessed and
contributed to by its members.
A four year action research programme examined the development of collaborative
systems within the UK retail sector. Major supermarkets all established electronic
trading networks and their suppliers were effectively compelled to change their
systems of trading to comply with the technical and operational requirements of these
systems [14]. The structure of the collaborative systems that resulted imposed
considerable differences in the amount of power that the collaborating partners could
bring to bear on other partners [13], however, suppliers willingly assented to become
part of the collaborative trading system as they considered that their position in the
supply chain produced by the collaboration increased their chances of survival within
the market as a whole [14], [6] identified the following critical actions that need to be
addressed before engaging in collaborative systems:
Agree mutually beneficial outcomes from collaboration at the start of the
collaboration: The results of this programme reflect reports of an imbalance of
power and benefits in collaborative partnerships in the USA [3]
. Risks are
associated with both being included in and excluded from collaborative
relationships.
Control the proliferation of collaborative links: As retailers developed their
collaborative systems, the overhead for trading partners became unmanageable.
Establish consensual understanding of data: As collaboration relies on written
communication, an agreed understanding of terminology used is essential. It is
often difficult for data definitions to be agreed within an organisation and these
problems are compounded across organisations.
Address the change in skill profiles demanded by changes to working practices:
As staff profiles change, with more reliance on negotiation in written
communication, training issues need to be identified.
Revise business processes to support e-business: Improving one part of a business
process can only be successful if the other processes can support the improvement.
Collaboration may improve the efficiency of order receipt but needs to be matched
by improvements in order processing and distribution to avoid bottlenecks.
4 Collaboration in Academia
Academic-industrial collaboration can be interpreted as potentially beneficial from
one of a number of standpoints. Firstly, from the viewpoint of national policy, it
appears to provide a cost-effective means of embedding government policy into the
53
Higher Education sector. Secondly, from the viewpoint of those sponsoring research
for the purpose of increasing national wealth and academic prestige, it provides a
framework for developing research partnerships. UK government policy is to
encourage the structural embedding of collaboration between industry and the
Universities. However, at the level of academic and industrial practice there appear to
be some generic problems. Short-term common goals that are valued by both
academic and industrial partners are difficult to identify [10]. Government research
funding programmes frequently address this with explicit performance measurement
requirements. However, the implicit interpersonal relationships that provide the more
tacit components of collaboration, such as mutual trust, are not so frequently assessed
in such frameworks.
Overall, academic-industrial collaboration appears to have lacked the drive from
survival or competitive pressures that typically lead industry to collaborate. In
general, and with the possible exception of some practitioner-led research
programmes [16], there has been an absence of bottom-up initiatives for academic-
industrial collaboration. Government policy requirements have insisted that such
collaboration will take place and this has led to enforced top-down collaboration in
Universities when they bid for major research projects. But top-down pressure for
collaboration tends not to be effective [16]. Such top-down collaborative initiatives
tend to result in situations where the weaker partner drives the initiation of the
partnership in contrast to industry-industry partnerships where the stronger partner
provides the lead. This appears to result from a need for lower profile institutions to
find a place for themselves in serving the more elite, preferred institutions in order to
gain revenue and reputation.
This reflection on the impact of policy on how e-business practitioners interact in
collaborative systems has been examined at a strategic level. This is useful for
identifying macro influences on e-business systems but is remote from the operational
practice that enabling e-business systems are intended to operate. In order to identify
information requirements it is necessary to resolve specific activities where practice
exists. This emphasis upon recurrent practice as the foundation upon which
organisational culture sits is the subject of the next part of this paper.
5 A Practice-Based Model of Collaboration
A variety of tasks are called collaboration. Collaboration comprises many different
practices and policy will impact upon them in different ways. The taxonomy
proposed here will provide a means of refocusing on this interaction. The notion of
collaborative practice is distributed over all shades and varieties of practice. Smith
(2001) identifies categories specifically for the research area of higher education, and
this has a usefully simple, if not fully explanatory function for collaborative practice
in general. His categories comprise: corporate partnerships, team collaboration and
inter-personal collaboration. This maps to the notion of practice at the: macro level
(national/organisational), meso level (local community of practice) and micro level
(individual and small group). The macro level addresses the areas of strategic
consideration of overall policy within the operation of educational schemes. The
54
micro level addresses the activity of individual tactical educational practice. Finally,
the meso level bridges the gap between these two points of the practice continuum by
considering the activities of closely co-operating groups, or communities of practice
that interact dynamically with other communities. This provides a means to structure
discussion on how these categories of collaborative practice act and interact.
A simple model of tasks involved in collaborative practice uses examples taken
from a four year action research project in a soft drinks manufacturing organisation.
Interviews were conducted with an academic partner and an industrial partner to a
joint project [7]. This data was triangulated with data taken from observation of
collaboration between academic and industrial institutions. This provides a
complementary way of integrating parts of these three models in order to look at
specific examples of what is meant by collaborative practice. The model is built upon
a scale where one end is occupied by practice that is predominantly controlled or
influenced by academic institutions (for example, teaching and learning practice) and
the other end by industrial influence (for instance, applied research and development
projects). The model shows groupings of tasks observed occurring as an outcome of
ongoing collaborative projects. Mapped to these task categories are examples of ICT
tools and processes that were used in these areas of practice to contribute to
collaborative task execution. Alongside these mappings are ‘gaps’ that appeared in
the extent to which the technology were considered by the interviewees to have
facilitated achievement of the tasks
This simple categorisation provides a rudimentary taxonomy of this example of
collaborative practice observed between an academic and an industrial institution, its
groups and its individuals. The development from initial types of collaborative
practices to more mature forms is characterised by the taxonomy proposed in figure 1.
Increasingly intensive forms of collaboration, such as that from A1 to A3, or B7 to
B9, involve more developed levels of collaborative ability, motivation and cultural
affinity to collaborative action. Development of the collaborative practice in this way
is accompanied by a concurrent development of a number of attributes of the
developed collaborative system. These include time invested in the collaborative
arrangement, by a higher level of trust amongst the participating practitioners, by an
ability to identify benefits accruing from the partnership, by holding some goals in
common and by having begun to institutionalise, or ‘tempered’ the relationship in a
way in which interpersonal tensions are released sufficiently to enable participants to
be able to perform in the joint practice that emerges from the collaborative work
system [7]
55
Figure 1 Taxonomy of Collaborative Practice in an Academic-Industrial Project
Educationally oriented
Purposeful Collaboration
Categories
ICT
Contribution
Gap for
Purposeful
Participation
Industrially
oriented Purposeful
Collaboration
Categories
A1 Industrial
practitioners - guest
lectures of categorical
information
e-lectures,
virtual learning
environment
Aligning
information to
other contexts
of use
B1 Academics as
trainers / advisors in
categorical information
A2 Industrial
practitioners relate case
studies for problem
solving
e-lectures,
virtual learning
environment
Consensus of
important
problem
B2 Academics relating
case studies for problem
solving to industry
Micro level
A3 Industrial
practitioners as
members of academic
workshops
Visualisation,
modelling
software
Ability to
function as a
team member
B3 Academics as
members of industrial
project team
A4 Groups of
industrial practitioners
giving access and
information to
academics
Email,
groupware,
electronic
message boards
Developing
common
ontology of
information
B4 Groups of
academics giving access
and information to
industrial staff
A5 Groups of
practitioners give
access to research to
academics
Grid
technology,
distributed
databases
Develop ways
to work with
communities
B5 Groups of
academics provide
access to research to
industrial staff
Meso Level
A6 Groups of
industrial practitioners
sharing resources and
outcomes with
academics
Email,
groupware,
standards for
technology use
Developing
balanced power
relationships in
resource sharing
B6 Groups of academic
staff share resources
and research outcomes
with industrial staff
A7 Industrial
institutions providing
access to academic
staff / students for
placements
Security
management
procedures
Operational
policy
Negotiation of
extent of access
to resources
B7 Academic
institutions provide
access to industrial
institutional staff for
personal development
and training
A8 Industrial
institutions providing
access and facilities to
academics for
educational projects
Security
management
procedures
Tactical policy
Negotiation of
extent of access
to projects
B8 Academic
institutions provide
access and facilities to
industry for educational
projects
Macro Level
A9 Industrial
institutions sharing
resources/outcomes
(joint venture)
Strategic
policy
Negotiation of
extent of access
to rewards
B9 Academic
institutions share
resources/outcomes
(joint venture)
56
The following approach to exploring collaboration is proposed:
1. Define the benefits and outcomes for each partner.
2. Define the level at which the collaboration is to take place and categorize the
collaboration in the taxonomy.
3. Assess the role and contribution of ICT in enabling the collaboration in terms
of process, communication, knowledge sharing and trust building.
4. Identify the ‘gap’ remaining for purposeful collaboration.
5. Agree changes to policy, process and/or skill profiles to address the issues in
the ‘gap’ identified.
For example, a manufacturer approached an independent corner shop suggesting
that an on-line collaborative system would be a more efficient method of placing
orders, replacing the current weekly telephone order. The benefits to the manufacturer
included a reduction in transaction costs. The benefits to the shop would include 24x7
flexible ordering. The proposed collaboration can be positioned at Meso level 4 as
the manufacturer is offering to provide access to information about stock and pricing
levels, enabled by ICT. However, this requires the shop staff to have confidence in
the security and reliability of the system and confidence in their own abilities to use
the system. This was addressed by significant investment by the manufacturer in the
training of the store staff. Telesales staff with whom the store already had a rapport
trained the store owners on their premises and sat next to them as they entered their
first orders. Meso level 4 suggests that purposeful collaboration requires the
development of a common ontology and this was a significant issue in this particular
case. The change from telephone to on-line ordering initiated changes in process for
both trading partners, new skills were needed and new policies had to be put into
place to deal with situations such as wrong/incomplete orders entered/delivered. In
this case, in the ordering process, transaction costs decreased for the manufacturer but
increased for the store owner; ordering was ‘more flexible’ but more time-consuming
to enter orders and find out about special offers. This led to a reduction in the
quantity of products purchased. ICT supported the transaction process but was
insufficient as an enabler of collaboration.
Figure 1 shows recurrent practice representing the outcome of organisational
culture [1], a concept widely recognised as critical but which often acts to effectively
stall analysis of knowledge and information requirements analysis and hence, the
appropriate use of technology to deliver these. Simple tasks in some relatively
immature areas of collaboration, for example, A1, A4, A7 appear to be effectively
supported by ICT tools with highly efficient outcomes. Gaps here appeared to be
concerned with effectiveness within the operational context. Complex talks in
relatively mature areas of collaboration on the other hand appeared to show that ICT
tools have both less efficiency and effectiveness in supporting purpose. Social issues
predominate in the choice of supporting technology and in the gaps left between this
technology and overall achievement of task purpose.
This practice based model suggests that support for e-business requires an
iterative, recursive approach to ICT application that identifies and situates social
science based associated activity for e-business support to address these error gaps.
The next section identifies concepts from within social practice theory that might be
relevant to such gap management.
57
6 Closing the Gap in Supporting Purposeful Collaboration
The developing area of social practice theory sets as its main focus the study of
organisational culture through the medium of the work practices that comprise and
result from it. It covers an eclectic body of research and provides useful tools for the
analysis of work practice identified through the taxonomy developed above.
Blackler’s taxonomy of knowledge is a significant move away from the traditional
concept of knowledge as abstract, disembodied, individual and formal [4]. Rather
than studying knowledge as something individuals or organizations supposedly
possess, the attribute of ‘knowing’ is seen as something that they do. This is used to
analyse the dynamics of the systems through which knowing is accomplished. With
this reorientation of approach, ‘..knowing in all its forms is analysed as a
phenomenon which is: (a) manifest in systems of language, technology, collaboration
and control (i.e. it is mediated); (b) located in time and space and specific to
particular contexts (i.e. it is situated); (c) constructed and constantly developing (i.e.
it is provisional); and (d) purposive and object-oriented (i.e. it is pragmatic’[4].
Blackler uses activity theory [8] to identify this knowledge situated within
communities of practice. Engestrom’s model of socially distributed activity systems
explores the dynamics between agents, such as the users of collaborative systems,
objects of activity, such as trading processes, and the community that this trading
takes place within. Analysis is then carried out into how these elements are mediated.
Mediation may take place by implicit or explicit rules, by roles and divisions of
labour and by instruments and technology such as their information systems. This
approach to identifying task dependencies is particularly useful in the micro area of
task analysis identified in figure 1. At this micro level of practice activity theory
treats ICT as a particular mediator of action and as such provides a valuable approach
to complementing technology implementation to the community which uses it.
At the meso, or intermediate level of task analysis shown in figure 1 the concern is
more about the use of technology by professional groups. Using Blackler’s taxonomy
of knowledge, professional groups use embedded and encultured knowledge within
categories of e-business tasks and support of collaborative efforts in these tasks need
to address these knowledge types. The concept of communities of practice and its
associated idea of legitimate peripheral participation [11] is now a well established
approach to understanding working groups. The example of academics and industrial
workers in collaborative projects might be considered as a ‘community of
communities’. Dynamic social models such as this help to bring more effort to the
consideration of the detailed social structure of collaborative efforts in real situations
and this effort is reflected in a more considered evaluation of the purposeful
deployment of ICT resources.
Finally, at the macro level, tasks involve policy and strategy formulation. The
means of deployment of ICT resources to facilitate such tasks is less explicit.
Strategic ICT such as data mining, visualisation aids and web based agents are often
suggested for tasks in this area. However this area of practice is primarily concerned
with entrepreneurship, innovation, power and negotiation. Examples of purposeful
support for these processes lies with the concepts within such commentators as
Foucault (1979) whose domains surround issues of power, knowledge and ethics and
58
provide an insight into macro levels of collaboration that might inform decisions on
how ICT might be employed as a facilitating element in a particular context.
7 Conclusion
Considerable progress has been made in the use of ICT to remove the technical
barriers to collaboration making it easier to communicate at a distance but this is
sometimes at the neglect of the rationale for collaboration. Providing an easy means
for two people to talk to each other does not mean that they will use it. The purpose
of the particular collaboration, the need for this particular collaboration and the
benefits for both parties in the joint practice involved in such collaboration needs to
be addressed. The proposal of how this practice might be analysed in more detail
involves the devolution of its study to the level of individual task analysis, rather than
identifying aggregated responses to the demands of corporate policy. However, to
avoid an instrumentalist approach, this needs to be carried out as an open system that
recognises the impact of policy and resource effects from elsewhere in the wider
environment. The approach proposed here involves the development of a basic
taxonomy of practice that can be examined as individual phenomenon. The
application of some of the approaches to analysis found within social activity theory
provides a means to analyse the work-based behaviour. This approach provides a
means to better understand the nature of the work, the knowledge associated with it
and the explicit information components that are associated with that knowledge.
Two outcomes have emerged: Firstly, in the specific case of facilitating
collaboration through ICT, the extent to which information systems and the ICT that
delivers them can enable work processes needs to be evaluated. This evaluation
allows social support processes to be identified that are necessary to both take
advantage of, and support those information systems. Collaborative systems are
important to successful e-business systems, which are in turn a vital component of
modern business, but the nature of collaboration is not clear. This is problematical
because practices can turn out to be different from what might be expected from
policy specification and knowledge required by these work practices can be located in
places or media inaccessible to the IS and ICT supposedly enabling them.
Secondly, an approach to improving the ability of collaborative information
systems to support authentic work practice is proposed. This begins by identifying
taxonomies of practice for the specific work situation under examination. It moves
onto evaluate existing and proposed ICT against the local purposes of these
collaborative tasks. Shortfalls or gaps in the extent of facilitation provided by these
ICT tools are identified and finally conceptual tools from social activity theory are
identified in order to better determine the information requirements of systems to
support the collaborative practice. ICT components of e-business are necessary to
support collaboration but in themselves are often insufficient as enablers of
collaboration.
59
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