Innovation has become one of the primary core competencies of effective organizations. It leads to changes in products, services, organizational design, processes, strategies, and the systems that support them. It occurs when someone has an idea, shares it with others, and all find ways to turn the idea into action. The sharing is a critical step. Creative ideas blossom in a collaborative environment. Implementation depends on collaboration. The chapters in this volume explore a variety of methods and settings that show how collaboration can be utilized to enable and enhance innovation. The innovation may be incremental or breakthrough and evident at any level of organization: team, community of practice, project or program, company, joint venture, alliance, partnership, or supply chain.
In this volume, we refer to high quality interaction in the social network as collaboration. We believe creating the context for effective collaboration is a core competency of the organization. Working together well involves deepening trust among members and sharing ideas, perspectives, energy, and knowledge to address organizational challenges and opportunities. As innovation becomes the key to competitive advantage at company, supply chain, and regional levels, a shift from silos to collaboration becomes essential collaborating across boundaries becomes critical.
World class levels of performance are impossible without mastery of collaborative methods, processes, and designs. Few companies have mastered the discipline of collaboration well enough to achieve the highest levels of performance. Inter-agency collaboration in government is equally challenging. The chapters in this volume explorecollaborative approaches to innovation and the mechanisms and tools that contribute to the quality of collaborative effort.
*Discusses the importance of collaborative environments to improve innovation
*Addresses how to create a collaborative environment within an organization

Intangible forms of capital are being recognized in both research and practice as essential resources for fueling company growth. Forms of intangible capital include: intellectual, organizational, human, relationship, social, political, innovation, and collaborative. This volume consists of papers that focus on collaborative capital -- broadly defined as the organizational assets that enable people to work together well. It is manifested in such outcomes as increased innovation and creativity, commitment and involvement, flexibility and adaptability, leveraging of knowledge, and enhanced learning.

Collaborative capital represents a core competency or strategic resource essential for building competitive advantage by enabling the creation of networks of conversations and relationships. However, it is seldom developed in a deliberate and systematic way, but rather as an incidental outcome of formal and informal organizational change. It may be deliberately increased by change in organizational systems, practices, design, learning, and culture.

The term collaborative capital has seldom been used in research literature dealing with how people work together. Consequently, the meaning, measurement, and impact of collaborative capital in practice have not been explored to any significant extent. The papers in this volume launch that process with teaming contexts ranging from alliances and partnerships, to cross-national teams and cross-disciplinary teams.

The American Revolution: A Historical Guidebook is a guide to the major sites of the Revolutionary War as well as to the most authoritative books on the war written during the last fifty years. Composed of nearly 150 entries on sites including battle fields and encampments; forts; museums; and meeting houses and gathering places such as Faneuil Hall in Boston and Keeler Tavern in Ridgefield, Connecticut, this guidebook is an essential reference for anyone interested in Revolutionary War history. Entries include essays from the most authoritative and accessible books on the American Revolution, including such classic works as Barbara Tuchman's The First Salute and David Hackett Fischer's Washington's Crossing, as well as a number of illuminating primary documents by Abigail Adams, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and others. The essays provide context and overview, giving a sense of the major figures and events as well as the course of the Revolution. Frances Kennedy, general editor, provides connecting narrative throughout the text, which moves chronologically from the pre-Revolutionary years up through 1787. The resulting book is encyclopedic in scope yet accessible to the general reader. Accompanied by historical maps, it offers a comprehensive picture of how the Revolutionary War unfolded on American soil, and also points readers to the best writing on the subject in the last fifty years.