Digital Transformations in the Challenge of Activity and Work

2Collaborative Work Platforms: Challenges for Business Development

This chapter is based on research that addresses the psychosocial–organizational issues that can arise from the use of a digital enterprise social network (DESN). After defining the hybrid modalities that characterize contemporary work, we will demonstrate that the activity of networking reconfigures the engagement and activity structuring in asynchronous and distributed collaborations. We will rely on the concept of shared collaborative intentionality to qualify these new modalities of engagement and to characterize the new collaborative skills developed by professionals in order to increase their power to act.

2.1. Introduction

Collaborative platforms and digital enterprise social networks (DESNs) bring together a set of technologies (ICTs) (wikis, forums, instant messaging, micro-blogs, document sharing and content co-design spaces). They are similar to the digital social networks used privately (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), and constitute new types of technologies. These are dedicated to communication and collaboration between companies through the development of new communication modalities, the creation of remote content, the sharing of opinions and the capitalization of information. Two objectives are targeted: (1) to optimize interactions; and (2) to facilitate collaborations between actors who are physically distant or who cannot collaborate at the same time (Zacklad 2006; Barville-Deromas 2014). ...