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Senior managers within organizations make decisions to deal with problems on a regular basis. In doing so, these senior managers must work with other individuals who are co-located with them or separated from them by distance and time. Whether near or far, problem solving and decision making necessitate the use of technology tools. However, just as a problem solving method or decision making practice might not be suitable for the unique situation, the technology tools might not be suitable or adequate for the problem at hand and the decision to be made, especially those technology tools claiming to support collaboration. This paper reviews the research on collaboration in comparison with cooperation, problem solving, decision making, and technologies that claim to support these activities. Following the review, we discuss the focus of this paper, which is the notion that senior managers do not have a clear understanding of collaboration and thus lack methods to help their employees or organization members solve problems. The literature review leads to a presentation of the methodology for this qualitative study followed by the results and discussion, including a presentation of the derived organization model and suggestions for future research. As an outline, this paper covers the following topics: * Review of research on collaboration that defines and compares this term with cooperation; * Review of research on problem solving, decision making, and technology tools and then compares their relationship to collaboration; * Illustrates senior managers' understanding of collaboration, problem solving, decision making, and technology tools; * Presents the research methodology, organization models, and a discussion of the findings and follow-up research question. Collaboration vis-a-vis Cooperation The literature illustrates the difficulty in differentiating between the meanings of collaboration and cooperation. Yet, it is important to make these semantic distinctions to establish a theory of collaboration and enable research investigations to proceed. In fact, Wood and Gray (1991) analyzed nine distinct definitions of collaboration, classified numerous categories, and suggested that "collaboration occurs when a group of autonomous stakeholders of a problem domain engage in an interactive process, using shared rules, norms, and structures to act or decide on issues related to that domain" (p. 146). This classification should encompass all discernible categories and omit any extraneous matters. Therefore according to Wood and Gray, a general theory of collaboration must describe an individual's function who acts to establish, legitimize, and guide the collaborative activity. Thus, collaborative activity maps to three critical issues: 1. Provide preconditions that make collaboration possible and motivate stakeholders, 2. Establish processes that support collaboration, and 3. Enable appropriate outcomes. These authors felt that rather than focusing on the individual organization, such as, an academic, business, or governmental group, researchers should look at the inter-organization problem domain, believing a general theory of collaboration should start with a classification of the phenomena (Gray, 2000). Socio-Cultural Perspective. Taking a socio-cultural rather than a problem domain approach, Lin and Beyerlein (2006) pointed out the continued confusion and called for further clarification regarding cooperation and collaboration. As such, Lin and Beyerlein determined that the nature of collaboration was not clearly defined and that related ontological and epistemological concerns were not addressed. Although the notion of collaboration was receiving much attention by organizational researchers and consultants, alike, these experts tended to treat collaboration as a structure, failing to acknowledge its social aspects. …

Highs and Lows of Organizational Decision Making and the Relationship to Collaboration and Technology Tools