Collaborative Networks is a fast developing area, as shown by the already large number of diverse real-world implemented cases and the dynamism of its related involved research community. Benefiting from contributions of multiple areas, nameley management, economy, social sciences, law and ethics, etc., the area of Collaborative Networs is being consolidated as a new scientific discipline of its own. On one hand significant steps towards a stronger theoretical foundation for this new discipline are developed and applied in industry and services. §Based on the experiences and lessons learned in many research projects and pilot cases developed during the last decade, a new emphasis is now being put on the development of holistic frameworks, combining business models, conceptual models, governance principles and methods, as well as supporting infrastructures and services. In fact, researching the phase in which the computer and networking technologies provide a good starting basis for the establishment of collaborative platforms, the emphasis is now turning to the understanding of the collaboration promotion mechanisms and CN governance principles. Therefore, issues such as the value systems, trust, performance and benefits distribution are gaining more importance. Encompassing all these developments, the efforts to develp reference models for collaborative networks represent a major challenge in order to provide the foundation for further developments of the CN.§PRO-VE represents a good synthesis of the work in this area, and plays an active role in the promotion of these activities. Being recognized as the most focused scientific and technical conference on Collaborative Networks, PRO-VE continues to offer the opportunity for presentation and discussion of both the latest research developments as well as the practical application case studies. Following the vision of IFIP and SOCOLNET, the PRO-VE conference offers a forum for collaboration and knowledge exchange among experts from different regions of the world.Collaborative Networks is a fast developing area, as shown by the already large number of diverse real-world implemented cases and the dynamism of its related involved research community. Being recognized as the most focused scientific and technical conference on Collaborative Networks, PRO-VE continues to offer the opportunity for presentation and discussion of both the latest research developments as well as the practical application case studies.Collaborative Networks (CN) is a fast developing area, as shown by the already large number of diverse real-world implemented cases and the dynamism of its related involved research community. Simultaneously, significant steps towards a stronger theoretical foundation for this new discipline are being taken, complemented by a growing collection of application cases in industry and services.§This book contains a number of selected articles from PRO-VE 06, the seventh working conference on virtual enterprises held in Helsinki, Finland, which was sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and the Society of Collaborative Networks (SOCOLNET). Being recognized as the most focused scientific and technical conference on Collaborative Networks, PRO-VE continues offering the opportunity for presentation and discussion of both the latest research developments as well as the practical application case studies. Following the vision of IFIP and SOCOLNET, the PRO-VE conference offers a forum for collaboration and knowledge exchange among experts from different regions of the world.§The articles included in this book represent a comprehensive overview of recent advances in various domains and lines of research and development on collaborative networks. Of particular relevance are the topics of modeling frameworks, value systems and competency management, trust building and risk, performance indicators and network management, collaboration platforms and tools, VO creation and negotiation, and applications in industry and services. §For more information about the 300 other books in the IFIP series, please visit www.springer.com. §For more information about IFIP, please visit www.ifip.org.
