What is Collaborative Partners

Enabling interorganizational collaboration for SMEs holds a lot of promise for increased competitiveness and global reach in a connected economy (Ripeanu, 2008; Marmaridis, 2004; Ginige 2004). An earlier book (Marmaridis & Unhelkar, 2005) examined the unique constraints that SME organizations have in embracing new technology – such as mobile technology. The solution proposed for overcoming these constraints is a methodology that is referred to as m-transformation (Marmaridis, 2006). Building on this work, this chapter now presents the next step in SME evolution, mobile collaboration (m-collaboration). The chapter details the concerns that must be overcome for SMEs to start collaborating rapidly with each other. It examines the role of trust in collaboration and provides a methodology suitable for handling the variation of trust throughout each collaborative engagement. It also presents a conceptual framework that can be used to implement the methodology and empower SMEs into embracing collaboration and realizing tangible benefits from it. Aspects of the methodology and conceptual framework have been presented in a number of international conferences already (Marmaridis, 2005); this chapter, however, puts the pieces together and presents the methodology and framework in their entirety. Upon completing this chapter, the reader will have a very good understanding of the landscape of collaboration in the SME space. Furthermore, the reader will be familiarized with the field-tested mobile collaboration methodology for SMEs and the conceptual framework for implementing it in real life.