Collaborative learning at the workplace by technical support of communication and negotiation

The introduction of knowledge management systems can be related to the vision of organizational and collaborative learning. Empirical studies in several German companies revealed a lack of support in communication over the everyday tasks of the employees. However, when collaborative learning environments have been used in schools or universities, they mainly focus on the support of communication for knowledge exchange rather than for the negotiation of decisions. Our approach is to integrate the advantages of both - knowledge management systems and collaborative learning environments - in order to combine experienced approaches of communication support and material storage. According to our empirical studies, a new type of knowledge management systems - as represented by Techknowledgy™ - integrates communication support and enables the dealing of problems with software usage more efficient than is the case when using help desks or training course. However, the potentials for continuous improvement of the underlying material is limited due to a lack of support in decision making and negotiation. An empirical study of the collaborative learning environment KOLUMBUS shows how just such a negotiation support should be designed. The results of the study provide evidence that the combination of communication and negotiation provides an appropriate mechanism to support the task of learning from each other and agreeing upon common results regarding company content or further joint activities. Essential recommendations are the total integration of communication and negotiation, increased visibility of votes during the negotiation process and the providing of explicit coordination and facilitation.