Although collaboration generally takes place everywhere that humans work together, it is poorly understood and often taken for granted.

A dictionary definition usually states something like: ‘the act of working together with one or more people in order to achieve something.’ This definition sheds very little light on how collaboration might differ from cooperation - even though when most people use these two terms, they are referring to two different acts.

Despite being a ubiquitous method of human cooperation, there are virtually no general theories of collaboration in existence.