Introduction

Chapter 15 - Virtual Organization: Duality of Human Identities in Consciousness and Entity
Managing IT in Government, Business & Communities
by Gerry Gingrich (ed)
Idea Group Publishing 2003

	Brought to you by Team-Fly

As with net-enabled organizations, the concept of virtual organizations has gained prominence among researchers and practitioners. As shown by the recent work of Schultze and Orlikowski (2001), virtuality can be understood through the perception of time and space. This research extends the scope of the virtual organization in terms of "virtual space," a metaphor used in time and space (beyond the constraints of the actual location we belong to) dimensions (Allcorn, 1997). As opposed to the virtual organization, time and space dimensions are constrained in traditional or "real" organizations. Time constraints occur in real organizations due to the operational time dimension of such organizations, while space dimension occurs due to constraints of location.

It is true that a virtual organization inherits the attributes of virtual dimensions a newly defined concept of time and space. In other words, a virtual organization does not exist in our time and space, but rather exists only in virtual space (perceptual world), which is only a metaphor of our consciousness and not reality. A virtual organization, in this sense, is the metaphor of our designed and structured consciousnesses that exists in virtual space to perform the intended actions of interest. However, the most important thing in a virtual organization is to identify the role of human actors who get involved in both the physical and the perceptual world. We attempt to explain the relationships between the human actors, the real and virtual organizations, and our perceptions of these concepts.

	Brought to you by Team-Fly