What is Organization (Institutional)

Collaboration is a constitutional element of any organization. To conceptualize the organization as an evolving system of interactions means to put the focus on communication. Communication in organizations implies a process of information and knowledge exchange between two or more individuals or social aggregates such as teams, groups, and departments. From the social perspective as the dominant paradigm in recent information and knowledge management studies, the core of electronic collaboration is to support informal communication, communities of practice, and social networks. This chapter provides the theoretical background of informal communication in organizations from a social constructionist view in a first step. In a second step, it presents the KMmaster framework as an example of a Web-based enterprise software to support electronic collaboration and knowledge transfer across intra- and inter-organizational boundaries. The knowledge management platform KMmaster will be illustrated with its editions designed for specific applications (lessons learnt, reporting), processes (innovation management) and industries (life science).