Is effective remote collaboration with digital tools a myth or reality?[Collaborer efficacement à distance avec des outils numériques, mythe ou réalité ?]

Any enthusiast of information and communication technologies (ICT) who evolves within an organization knows the profound paradox linked to collaborative tools: there are numerous technological solutions that are ergonomic and high-performing, yet it is difficult to convince colleagues to use them. The literature has already addressed from various aspects the usefulness of ICTs for bringing individuals together in group work. However, the issue of online work, coordination, and collaboration still poses acute challenges with problems of team cohesion and isolation. It is in the collective dynamics and their management that the impact of Collaborative Information Systems (CIS) focused on collaborative work, co-construction, exchange, and mobility (Dudezert, 2018) is strongest. Collaborative work differs from cooperative work by the absence of task distribution among its participants and requires the participation of all at each stage of its development (Rebetez, 2020). Our research has focused on the impact of MS Teams on the organization of group projects with strong constraints of distance that generate increasingly marked desynchronizations of individual and collective times in France (Royoux, 2017). The analysis of collective dynamics is made possible thanks to the second-generation model of Activity Theory (Engeström, 2001). Therefore, collectively appropriating these environments has become a real managerial challenge. In the context of remote work, the CIS influences the group in its organizational choices by promoting a mode of exchange that distributes information equitably among all members. This is favorable to the emergence of collective intelligence and allows for addressing complex problems with increased creativity. Thus, our results demonstrate that it is possible to maintain a mode of collaborative work at a distance with management adapted to CIS.