Towards a meta-methodology for collaborative networked organisations

Abstract

Collaborative Networked Organisations (CNOs) are conceptually well understood, and their potential benefits are commonly accepted. However, there is still a critical need for methodologies and reference models to assist and guide the organizational design of CNOs. The efforts to provide a specific CNO implementation and operation methodology can be greatly assisted by defining a meta-methodology - a method on how to produce methods - for various CNOs or CNO types. This paper describes the concepts, design and possible implementations of such a meta-methodology for the creation and operation of CNOs. Potential and actual applications of the meta-methodology are also briefly presented, followed by conclusions on the feasibility of the concept and design effort and by an outline of suggested further work. © 2004 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.