DAWN OF THE KNOWLEDGE-BASED COLLABORATIVE ERA 2 It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. --CHARLES DARWIN hat comes to mind when you think of the term "survival of the fittest"? You might imagine a competitive battle for survival, in which winners survive and losers disappear. Yet in the coming decades, as we continue to move from an information-based to a knowledge-based economy, there is a strong case to be made that the fittest will be not the ones who have the greatest ability to simply compete, but those who are best able to collaborate as well. Throughout modern society, collaborations are becoming a business imperative. According to Frances Westley and Harriet Vredenburg of McGill University, "Partnerships, strategic alliances, and interfirm networks have been viewed as critical structural innovations designed to address the kinds of ill-defined problems that depend on multiple perspectives and resources for their solution" (Westley & Vredenburg, 1997, p. 381). The W