Collaborative organization design: a synergy of groupware and Web-based infrastructures and technology

With GroupOrga (Groupware Based Organization Design), we present a "thinkable" application environment and framework for distributed and collaborative organization design. The relationship between collaboration and organization structure is touched by addressing the question of how people in an organization can collaboratively design constantly evolving organization structures. After specifying the term collaboration in the context of GroupOrga, we discuss how collaboration technology can support global organizations. With the GroupOrga architecture we present a technological layer for a deeper understanding of collaboration in general. This framework is not restricted to a specific technology, such as the World Wide Web, but considered to be an open architecture. Despite this fact, we look at two collaboration technologies in comparison: groupware and the Web. The question which technology is flexible enough for which requirements is one aspect. Another aspect is that of concrete Web- and groupware-based applications in the GroupOrga project. Our experiences from selected case studies and test implementations is the concluding topic.