Cross – Organizational Enterprise 2.0 Projects as a door opener for Open Ecosystems

Modern organizations are increasingly investing in Enterprise 2.0 platforms for internal and external information- and knowledge-provision as well as for driving innovation. The stakeholders’ readiness, willingness and ability to cooperate are critical factors for such projects that need to be considered to increase the probability of success for implementing common strategies, systems and processes. Implementing a cross-organizational Enterprise 2.0 platform contributes to reinforce trust and helps to strengthen the relationship between value chain partners. Therefore such projects can serve as enabler to support open ecosystems, by establishing the needed level of trust and implicitly changing the organizational culture by overcoming hierarchies and organizational borders. The contribution of the paper is to explain and reflect the performed methodology as well as selected key results from two pilot projects. With it, it provides elaborative insights into key features of Enterprise 2.0 platforms and project management.