Collaborative Climate

The first step in this research project aimed at developing a theory for identifying the human infrastructure for knowledge sharing and knowledge creation – Collaborative Climate – and a method for measuring it. This step is accomplished. We now have a validated and solid survey instrument, the CCS, and a growing database for benchmarking, with currently (January 2005) more than 16,000 respondents. The Paper (Sveiby & Simons 2002); Collaborative Climate and Effectiveness of Knowledge Work was published in Journal of Knowledge Management and awarded Emerald’s Most Outstanding Paper Award 2002. It is available at http://www.sveiby.com/articles/ccs.pdf. The 2nd Step and Early Findings We are now one year into the second step; to use the CCS as an instrument to establish how the effectiveness of knowledge work, in particular value creation, is influenced by collaborative climate. We already have some very interesting first results. There appears to be a surprisingly strong correlation between a good collaborative climate and performance as perceived by the respondents. However, we need more data to validate these early findings. The main research questions are:  What is the difference in value creation between a ‘good’ vs. a ‘bad’ collaborative climate?  Do differences in collaborative climate have an effect on business performance?  Do differences in collaborative climate explain differences in creativity, innovation, capabilities, team effectiveness, etc?