Networked companies and a typology of collaborations
Résumé
The notion of interoperability is only relevant when there is some degree of networking or collaboration between companies. This chapter presents the main types of network in order to infer, in fine, the type of interoperability needed in each particular case. The forms of collaboration between networked companies may be varied, but they all at least involve organization of the partners’ activities in a manner which specifies the roles of each participant and the rules by which to run the network. This type of organization is called Collaborative Network Organization and can take several forms: strategic alliance; integrated logistics management; network enterprise; and virtual organizations and clusters. When a practical community uses information networks as well as most of the practices and tools of virtual communities, it becomes a Professional Virtual Community. This chapter proposes a classification of the various types of collaboration that is organized along two axes: long-term strategic collaborations and project-oriented collaborations. © ISTE Ltd 2017.