Analysis of collaborative tools usages in heterogeneous contexts

Abstract: Situations of collaborative working are more and more complex and various in organizations. Such diversification is little studied in the literature. Researches about “technologies usages ” in “collaborative situations ” mainly focus on specific contexts where a given group is using a specific technology. In this paper, we focus on the richness of a real world environnement of collaboration technologies ’ implementation, where different groups are working in various contexts (profession, localizations, tasks, etc) and using different tools. We propose a model to analyze usages and to bring with patterns in such complexity. First, we propose a brief introduction about the notion of “usage”. In the second section, we present a research framework obtained by the integration of elements from different models and disciplines. The model was applied to analyze collaborative work tools usage in a French automotive company. As result, this study allowed us to map a global tools usage description, identify user groups’ configurations, their needs, practices and usages. 1 Introduction and research issue