Research group on

Complex Collaboration

Our research group brings together scholars and practitioners interested in the phenomena of complex collaboration in organizations and how technology participates in the emergence of new forms of working, organizing and relating.  

To know what we are working on and to join our team, visit our Research page or check out the latest News.

What is Complex Collaboration?

Complex collaboration takes place when individuals with differentiated expertise have to collaborate across organizational, epistemological, and professional boundaries in order to create an emergent outcome through an interdependent process that is difficult to specify a priori. Our goal is to answer fundamental questions related to managing expertise, the sharing and integration of knowledge, and enabling new forms of coordinating and innovating. 

Work in organizations is increasingly technology-mediated. Emerging technologies such as AI, robots, data analytics, health digitalization, ubiquitous surveillance, and technology platforms are transforming complex collaboration in novel and unexpected ways. In organizations, traditional constraints around boundaries, scale, scope, expertise and industry have been breached. For individuals, what used to be considered private social utterances and relations are now being appropriated by digital platform owners. Even the nature of work is radically transformed by the ability of emerging technologies, such as AI, to participate in knowledge work and thus bring about reassembled work practices and new regimes of organizing.

To know who we are working with, take a look at our Collaborator pages. 

The Group on Complex Collaboration is supported by
the Canada Research Chair in Technology, Innovation, and Organizing.