An Integrated Approach to Online Partnership Building

Research in information sciences in recent years has dealt with how to support collaborative work across time, space and organizational boundaries. However, this research neglected the question of how information systems can contribute right at the beginning of virtual work in the design phase of the team. Team configuration can be modeled as a two-dimensional matching problem: individuals need to be brought together (1) with tasks for which they posses the competencies to carry them out and (2) with other individuals with whom they are able to collaborate successfully. It is understood that multiple dimensions of human as well as social capital and especially of trust play an important role in the underlying decision process. Based on research in multiple fields we develop an approach permitting to establish successful virtual partnerships. We present its implementation together with first promising validation results.