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Enterprise Collaboration Systems (ECS) have become substantial for computer-mediated communication and collaboration among employees in organisations. As ECS combine features from social media and traditional groupware, a growing number of organisations implement ECS to facilitate collaboration among employees. Consequently, ECS form the core of the digital workplace. Thus, the activity logs of ECS are particularly valuable since they provide a unique opportunity for observing and analysing collaboration in the digital workplace.
Evidence from academia and practice demonstrates that there is no standardised approach for the analysis of ECS logs and that practitioners struggle with various barriers. Because current ECS analytics tools only provide basic features, academics and practitioners cannot leverage the full potential of the activity logs. As ECS activity logs are a valuable source for understanding collaboration in the digital workplace, new methods and metrics for their analysis are required. This dissertation develops Social Collaboration Analytics (SCA) as a method for measuring and analysing collaboration activities in ECS. To address the existing limitations in academia and practice and to contribute a method and structures for applying SCA in practice, this dissertation aims to answer two main research questions:
1. What are the current practices for measuring collaboration activities in Enterprise Collaboration Systems?
2. How can Social Collaboration Analytics be implemented in practice?
By answering the research questions, this dissertation seeks to (1) establish a broad thematic understanding of the research field of SCA and (2) to develop SCA as a structured method for analysing ac-tivity logs of ECS. As part of the first research question, this dissertation documents the status quo of SCA in the academic literature and practice. By answering the second research question, this dissertation contributes the SCA framework (SCAF), which guides the practical application of SCA. SCAF is the main contribution of this dissertation. The framework was developed based on findings from an analysis of 86 SCA studies, results from 6 focus groups and results from a survey among 27 ECS user companies. The phases of SCAF were derived from a comparison of established process models for data mining and business intelligence. The eight phases of the framework contain detailed descriptions, working steps, and guiding questions, which provide a step by step guide for the application of SCA in practice. Thus, academics and practitioners can benefit from using the framework.
The constant evaluation of the research outcomes in focus groups ensures both rigour and relevance. This dissertation employs a qualitative-dominant mixed-methods approach. As part of the university-industry collaboration initiative IndustryConnect, this research has access to more than 30 leading ECS user companies. Being built on a key case study and a series of advanced focus groups with representatives of user companies, this dissertation can draw from unique insights from practice as well as rich data with a longitudinal perspective.