In Defense of Collaboration Ecosystems: Addressing Critical Collaboration Elements and Cognitive Biases for Sustainability

The flexibility offered by collaborative technologies allows multiple actors from diverse industries to collaborate on software development projects for value co-creation. This study highlights critical collaboration elements in software projects and how cognitive biases can be spotted by ecosystem stakeholders to improve effective collaboration on software engineering activities. Research shows that, although collaboration in ecosystems for software projects results in outcomes that would have been difficult for an individual actor to achieve, only a few such collaborations are undertaken effectively as it requires balancing conflicting personal goals and values with the overall ecosystem health. The study explores key collaboration elements and whether psychological factors, such as cognitive biases, play a role in the collaboration choices that ecosystem stakeholders make during software engineering-related activities for sustainability. On the one hand, collaborative technologies enhance communication, coordination, resource sharing, and multitasking for value co-creation among dispersed knowledge workers. On the other hand, technology contributes to a trust deficit, especially when there are concerns about unequal commitment and contributions. We argue that collaborative technologies alone do not guarantee effective collaboration for value co-creation on software projects and that there are other critical human elements that together influence multi-actor engagement and collaboration.