Susan G. Cohen

Don Mankin

Traditional forms of collaboration are not sufficient for competingeffectively in the more complex and dynamic environment oftoday’s business world. Face-to-face meetings between peopleof similar backgrounds have given way to increasingly complexworking relationships. Organizations must be able to gain rapidaccess to knowledgeable people to meet constantly changingconditions and demands. More fluid, flexible, and easilyreconfigurable collaborative relationships are necessary to producethe innovations that can make or break organizations¾evenentire industries¾ and provide the opportunities that attractthe talented and motivated employees who will make the differencebetween success and failure. Business Without Boundaries helps managers addressthese challenges. The authors explore a number of wide-ranging,real-world cases to identify hands-on principles for successfulcollaboration. They offer managers and executives practical stepsand tools for creating, facilitating, and supporting complexcollaborations throughout their organizations. And they explain howto “team” across boundaries in the new global economy.The recommendations are specific enough to apply to particularforms of complex collaboration (for example supply chains, globalproduct development teams, interorganizational alliances) butgeneral enough to apply to new forms that have yet to emerge.

An Action Framework for Collaborating Across Time, Distance, Organization, and Culture

Business Without Boundaries

Cristina B. Gibson

Virtual Teams That Work offers a much-needed, comprehensive guidebook for business leaders and managers who want to create the organizational conditions that will help virtual teams thrive. Each chapter in this important book focuses on best practices and includes case studies and illustrative examples from a wide variety of companies, including British Petroleum, Lucent Technologies, Ramtech, SoftCo, and Whirlpool Corporation. These real-life examples demonstrate how the principles identified in the book play out within virtual teams. Virtual Teams That Work shows how organizations can put in place the structure to help team members who speak different languages and have different cultural values develop effective ways of communicating when there is little opportunity for the members to meet face-to-face. The authors also reveal how organizations can implement performance management and reward systems that will motivate team members to cooperate across multiple boundaries. And they offer the information to determine which technologies best fit a variety of virtual-team tasks and the level of information technology support needed.

Susan G. Cohen

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