The Business Value of E-Collaboration: A Conceptual Framework

This article presents a conceptual framework of the business value of e-collaboration. In the past decade, firms have increasingly implemented collaborative technologies to support business activities, and investments in collaborative technologies have taken an increasing share of firms’ e-business investments. Presumably, such investments have been motivated by the notion that the implementation of collaborative technologies has business value. While research has repeatedly demonstrated the individual- and group-level impacts of collaborative technologies, it has rarely addressed their impacts at the organizational level and demonstrated their business value. In this article, I draw on three strategic management frameworks - the resource-based view of the firm, the knowledge-based view of the firm, and the dynamic capabilities perspective - to describe how specialized knowledge assets can be integrated through collaborative processes to create and sustain a competitive advantage. I then use this conceptualization as a platform for defining the organizational roles of collaborative technologies and the potential impact of each role on organizational performance. The main objective of this article is to provide a conceptual framework for researchers and practitioners who are interested in investigating and understanding the organizational impacts of collaborative technologies.