Virtuality and Virtualization

by Crowston, Kevin; Sieber, Sandra; Wynn, Eleanor

• ISBN13: 9780387730240
• ISBN10: 0387730249
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-07-01
• Publisher: Springer-Verlag New York Inc

Summary

In today's rapidly changing global work environment, all workers directly experience increased organizational complexity. Companies are functionally distributed, many across the globe. Intense competition for markets and margins makes adaptiveness and innovation imperative. Information and communication technologies (ICT) are pervasive and fundamental infrastructures, their use deeply integrated into work processes. Workers collaborate electronically with co-workers they may never meet face-to-face or with employees of other companies. New boundaries of time, space, business unit, culture, company partnerships, and software tools are driving the adoption of a variety of novel organizational forms. On a macro level, these changes have started to reshape society, leading some to speak of the "Network Society" and "The Information Age". This book begins with consideration of possible frameworks for understanding virtuality and virtualization. It includes papers that consider ways of analyzing virtual work in terms of work processes. Following that, the book takes a look at group processes within virtual teams, focusing in particular on leadership and group identity. The book goes on to consider the role of knowledge in virtual settings and other implications of the role of fiction in structuring virtuality.

Table of Contents

Conference Chairs	p. viii
Program Committee	p. viii
Additional Reviewers	p. viii
Introduction	p. 1
Virtuality and Virtualization	p. 1
Keynotes	p. 9
Beyond Distributed Cognition	p. 11
Dig the Dirt	p. 13
Frameworks for Understanding Virtuality and Virtualization	p. 19
Conceptualizing Virtual Collaborative Work	p. 21
Conduct, Performance, and Dilemmas of Inter-organizational Virtual Organizing	p. 35
Process Issues to Achieve Virtualization	p. 51
Structuring Virtuality	p. 53
Competency Rallying Processes in Virtual Organizations	p. 67
Spatial and Temporal Boundaries in Global Teams	p. 85
Coordinating Global Software Development Activities	p. 99
The Tension Between Expectations of Availability and the Reality of Availability in Hybrid Teams	p. 119
A Process Maturity Model for Geographically Dispersed Software Sustenance Operations	p. 133
Group Processes in Virtual Teams	p. 149
A Structurational Perspective on Leadership in Virtual Teams	p. 151
Ambassadorial Leadership	p. 169
The Presentation of Self in a Virtual but Work-related Environment	p. 183
Understanding Virtuality	p. 201
Conditions Enabling Effective Multiple Team Membership	p. 215
Knowledge and Virtuality	p. 229
Learning Triggers in Virtual Groups	p. 231
Sharing Knowledge in Global Virtual Teams	p. 251
The Practice of e-Science and e-Social Science	p. 267
From Senses to Sensors	p. 281
Expertise Management in a Distributed Context	p. 295
The Role of Fiction in Structuring Virtuality	p. 315
Building Virtual Spaces	p. 317
Reframing Online Games	p. 335
Virtualizing the Virtual	p. 353
Panels	p. 367
Virtualization and Institutions	p. 369
Exploring the Nature of Virtuality	p. 373
The Social in the Virtual	p. 379
The Role of Shapers in Knowledge-Sharing	p. 383
Game Architecture and Virtual Teamwork	p. 387
The IT Artifact and Telecommuting	p. 391
Virtual Patients	p. 397
Index of Contributors	p. 403
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