1. A method for managing a collaborative process that involves at least a first player in a first enterprise having a first collaborative process manager and a second player in a second enterprises having a second collaborative process manager comprising the steps of: a) defining an inter-enterprise collaborative business process having a plurality of work nodes; wherein each work node has a task role identifier for specifying one of the first player and the second player as responsible for execution of the work node; b) the first collaborative process manager executing a first peer instance of the collaborative business process; and c) the second collaborative process manager executing a second peer instance of the collaborative business process; wherein the first peer instance of the collaborative business process and the second peer instance of the collaborative business process form a logical execution instance; and wherein the first peer instance of the collaborative business process and the second peer instance of the collaborative business process communicate through messages for information exchange and synchronization.