Exploring the Barriers to Electronic Collaboration

Abstract

This investigation reviews research literature on electronic collaboration (e-collaboration) with a view to collate relevant information to support e-collaboration knowledgebase, further research and encourage further collaborative engagements. E-collaboration has been described with various phrases such as information sharing, information exchange, knowledge sharing, social networking and joint working. This research categorised the challenges of e-collaboration into people, process and technology because all the issues identified in e-collaboration research are rooted in one of these categories. As e-collaboration is a source of competitiveness, businesses that fail to strategically adopt the phenomenon could lose out. A notable example of e-collaboration is crowdfunding which provides funding for start-up and small businesses. However, businesses that support e-collaboration strategy have the potential to have better competitive advantage with increased firm performance.