Technological Embeddedness of Inter-Organizational Collboration Processes

Big data technology challenges our existing conceptions of inter-organizational collaboration processes in two ways. First, big data technology creates real-time digital traces of inter-organizational processes, producing far greater operational transparency across formal boundaries than previously. Second, big data technology provides digital channels that improve the ability of collaborating organizations to coordinate tasks across formal boundaries. Jointly, operational transparency and digital channels enable real-time coordination of complex tasks across organizational boundaries that is often as fluent as within organizations. We coin the term technological embeddedness to characterize the augmentation of inter-organizational processes through data flows. We elaborate the implications for five themes in inter-organizational collaboration: trust, sensemaking, rhythms of interaction, co-adaptation, and interdependence. We conclude with a discussion of future research opportunities.