IT tools to support or enable different types of team cooperation enjoy great distribution. In particular, tools from the field of social software are increasingly being used by companies and teams. In this paper a research project is motivated, which will examine the cooperation context and the tool set of young, innovative companies. The results will give an outlook on what requirements and expectations of employees will provide a working- and tool-landscape in the coming years. In addition, the research orientation is to aggregate knowledge for decision makers in young, innovative companies for the design of digital collaboration.

1. nwebs GbR – Beratung und Internetdienstleistungen
Forschungsgruppe Kooperationssysteme München
Community & Technologies 2013, München
zusammenarbeit.tumblr.com
Digital Cooperation in young, innovative Enterprises:
Orientation Knowledge for young Enterprises and
Implications for the established Organizations
Jonathan S. Denner , Dipl.-Wi.-Ing.
Founder & CEO nwebs GbR, freelancer at Cooperation Systems Research Group Munich

2. Short introduction
Business: nwebs GbR
• Web Services for knowledge intensive
collaboration (e.g. requirement
management, community service)
• Consulting for Social Software
Research & scientific background
• Business engineering (Diplom) and
philosophy at the Karlsruhe Institute of
Technology (KIT, formerly the Technical
University of Karlsruhe)
• freelancer since 2012 at Cooperation
Systems Center Munich (CSCM)
Scientific supervision
Jonathan S. Denner
Dipl.-Wi.-ing.
Founder & CEO
E-Mail: jd@nwebs.de
Twitter: @zettel_kasten
Prof. Dr. Michael Koch
Universität der Bundeswehr
München (Uni BW München)
Institute for Software
Technology, Department of
Informatics
Cooperation Systems Center
Munich (CSCM)

3. 3
1. Introduction (1/3)
Digital Collaboration – we got still some problems
Despite "routinization" of the digital world in the
private sector, the professional cooperation
remains dominated by inefficiencies
Digital Cooperation in young, innovative Enterprises: Orientation Knowledge for
young Enterprises and Implications for the established Organizations
30.6.2013
Denner

4. 4
1. Introduction (2/3)
Status quo and research gap
• private usage social software has established itself rapidly
• Social software comes more and more into business & industry
• First Initial studies for established organizations [1], single and
multiple case studies [2] with valuable insights
[1] e.g. BITKOM 2012, Mattern et. al. 2012
[2] e.g. Riemer et. al. 2012, Richter et. al. 2011, Schubert et. al. 2011
research gap
a longitudinal study of the IT
infrastructure for digital
cooperation particularly in
young, innovative enterprises
The analyzed scenarios and
insights are characterized by
user experiences as well as
available tools from past
decades.
Digital Cooperation in young, innovative Enterprises: Orientation Knowledge for
young Enterprises and Implications for the established Organizations
30.6.2013
Denner

5. 5
1. Introduction (3/3)
Research questions
How do young, innovative enterprises
design the digital cooperation and
what implications do these have for
established organizations ?
Digital Cooperation in young, innovative Enterprises: Orientation Knowledge for
young Enterprises and Implications for the established Organizations
30.6.2013
Denner

6. 6
Sociotechnical system
(see Gross und Koch 2007, 15)
2. Forschungsgegenstand und Theoriebezug (1/2)
Computer mediated digital Collaboration
Digital Collaboration
• Collaboration:
conscious interaction of people to
achieve a common goal
• Digital Collaboration:
„[…] Cooperation by means of a
negotiated and mutually shaped,
computer-mediated context […] and
with the use of shared resources.“
(Stoller-Schai 2003, 47f, translated by Denner)
Persons
Organization
and structure
primary task
Technology
soc.
techn.
system
Digital Cooperation in young, innovative Enterprises: Orientation Knowledge for
young Enterprises and Implications for the established Organizations
30.6.2013
Denner

7. 7
Teams distinct to communities
and networks.
2. Forschungsgegenstand und Theoriebezug (2/2)
Teams in young, innovative enterprises
(Efimova 2010)
Digital Cooperation in young, innovative Enterprises: Orientation Knowledge for
young Enterprises and Implications for the established Organizations
30.6.2013
Denner
Young and innovative enterprises
(Weiß 2010, 11)
stagnant
company
diversified
enterprise
young,
innovative
company
traditional
company
degree of
confirmation
degree of
confirmation
degree of
first-time
degree of
first-time

8. 8
3. Research question and methodological approach (1/2)
Research questions and deduced questions
How do young, innovative enterprises design the digital cooperation
and what implications do these have for established organizations?”
• In what context do young, innovative
enterprises operate? (F1)
• Which tools do young, innovative
enterprises use in order to increase
their digital cooperation’s
productivity? (F2)
• How and in what form do the digital
cooperation’s contexts and deployed
tools change within a period of three
years (2011-14)? (F3)
• How can these young, innovative
enterprises take advantage of these
tools and context? (F4)
• Which similarities and differences
exist between young and established
organizations?(F5)
• How and under which conditions can
the utilization ways of young,
innovative enterprises’ be applied to
established organizations? (F6)
Digital Cooperation in young, innovative Enterprises: Orientation Knowledge for
young Enterprises and Implications for the established Organizations
30.6.2013
Denner

9. 9
Qualitative longitudinal survey
Pilot study
2011 2012 2013 2014
1 2 3
Quantitative
survey
Com-
parison
F1 F2
F3
F5
F4
F6
F1 Answer to the first question F1 1 1st survey for the longitudinal study
Key:
3. Research question and methodological approach (2/2)
Methodological approach and timeline
Digital Cooperation in young, innovative Enterprises: Orientation Knowledge for
young Enterprises and Implications for the established Organizations
30.6.2013
Denner
• In what context do young, innovative
enterprises operate? (F1)
• Which tools do young, innovative
enterprises use in order to increase
their digital cooperation’s
productivity? (F2)
• How and in what form do the digital
cooperation’s contexts and deployed
tools change within a period of three
years (2011-14)? (F3)
• How can these young, innovative
enterprises take advantage of these
tools and context? (F4)
• Which similarities and differences
exist between young and established
organizations?(F5)
• How and under which conditions can
the utilization ways of young,
innovative enterprises’ be applied to
established organizations? (F6)

10. 10
• Is the research gap comprehensive?
• Is the research meaningfulness?
• Do you know any related work our similar studies?
• Is the methodological approach traceable?
• In which artifacts can the results be presented?
• To which target documents the research result can
be brought?
4. Discussion
Questions and discussion
Digital Cooperation in young, innovative Enterprises: Orientation Knowledge for
young Enterprises and Implications for the established Organizations
30.6.2013
Denner

11. 11
Jonathan Denner
nwebs GbR, Edelsheimstraße 5, 76131 Karlsruhe
E-Mail: jd@nwebs.de
Twitter: @zettel_kasten
Web: http://nwebs.de
Fblog: http://zusammenarbeit.tumblr.com
Vielen Dank für Ihre Aufmerksamkeit
Wissensintensive, digitale Team-Zusammenarbeit in
jungen, innovativen Unternehmen – Eine qualitative Interview-Studie –
14. März 2013
Denner, Koch