Objectives of Players in Collaboration Networks

We identify at least four players or stakeholders in collaborations networks: Enterprise, Customer (current and prospective), Employee and Partner. Each player operates in the collaboration network with own objectives, motives and expectations, which are often asymmetric.

Collaboration networks differ from social networks in one fundamental way: collaboration networks focus on creating economic value. We compared collaboration and social networks in an earlier post.

Creating economic value through collaboration networks must begin with understanding and respecting motivations of individual player. In the context of the 4 Ps Framework for Effective Collaboration, here we are addressing the first 2 Ps only: Purpose and People. We have identified the Types of Players (People), we now outline the Purpose of collaboration.

In future posts, we will provide selected examples of collaboration between and among players in collaboration networks. In so doing, we shall also address the other 2 Ps of our 4Ps framework, namely Process and Place. 

Lokesh Datta is a co-founder of All Collaboration. Focusing on collaboration, All Collaboration offers points-of-view, original research, reviews of products and services, interviews with industry luminaries, and the “best of” articles on the web. All Collaboration has a companion Discussion Group on LinkedIn. Follow Lokesh on Twitter @LDatta.