Modeling for Virtual Organizations (original) (raw)

Virtual Organization: An Extensive Overview

The International Journal of Business and Management, 2017

Virtual Organization: An Extensive Overview 1. Introduction Managers and subordinates interface has always been face-to-face since the beginning of work organizations. Information Communication Technology (ICT) has changed this norm and created a new type of organization interface called VO, where management is virtual rather than face-to-face. Since virtual management has changed the whole concept of work organization, henceforth, it has become crucial to draw a line that demarcates VO from so called traditional organization. The central thesis of this paper is to draw a distinguished line between a VO from non-VO. To address this concern, the paper will proceed along the following spectrum: VO will be defined for purpose of conceptual clarity; emergences, characteristics, types, life cycle and the taxonomies of VO, will be highlighted; VO and VT will be distinguished; definitional frameworks of VO and the process of VO, the core of the paper, will be discussed followed by advantages and challenges of VO; a set of recommendation is offered to overcome the challenges faced by VO; different types of Virtual Employees are discussed and the collaboration tools of VO is enumerated. 2. Definition of Virtual Organization This section does not take into account all the definitions of VO given in the literature. Instead, the chosen definitions in this section are reviewed, commented and then classified. This may help to provide a clearer definition of VO and its implications. The terms virtual team, virtual corporation, virtual enterprise, virtual company, virtual management, and mobile workplace are used as synonyms for the term Virtual Organization in the literature (Jacobson, 2004). The VO transcends e-commerce, e-business, e-work and egovernment modes (Camarinha-Matos & Afsarmanesh, 2005). Jacobson (2004) and Reinicke (2010) claimed that the term VO was first coined by Mowshowitz in the 1980s, whereas, Camarinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh (2005) have argued that the term VO was not invented by a single researcher; the concept has matured through a long evolutionary process. In the literature, there are as many definitions of VO as there are researchers providing them (Guyverson 2006; Larsen & McInerney 2008). A point upon which many authors generally agree is that there is no common definition of VO. Some definitions of VO simply paraphrase the previous definitions, while others attempt to capture the many characteristics of VO.

Characterizing Virtual Organizations and Their Management

IFIP — The International Federation for Information Processing

Iris.Kan/onen&.vttfi, liro.Salkari&.vtt.fi. Martin.OHus(a>vttfi FINLAND Virtual Organization (VO) Management aims to the achievement of the objectives of the VO. It can be seen as a set of mechanisms and activities directing and controlling VO operation. As different VOs have different objectives and environment, different approaches for VO management are needed. The paper discusses the concept of VO management and presents an outline for building VO management approaches based on VO characteristics or descriptive parameters. First analysis of practical cases against the characteristics has been performed. Further development is needed to specify the management methods and mechanisms for different approaches.

Virtual organization as a strategic tool: Past, Present and Future

The continuous innovation in IT leads to VO concept. There are several reasons of this transformation such as: cope with new demands, and radical change in IT, gain competitive advantage, cost reduction, increasing performance, flexibility, and productivity, and involved suitable human skills from different places. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the VO concept, its evolution, characteristics, challenges associated with its implementation and proposed solution to compensate these difficulties, which led to the employment of virtual organization to become strategic tool in many organization. Real life examples will be shown, how it was used by organizations in past and present, and in the future.

The Functionality of Virtual Organizations

Procceedings of T-World, 2001

The objective of this paper is to study, how well the new organizational forms called virtual organizations are functioning. The ultimate purpose is to develop a more coherent theoretical account of virtual organizations and their various forms, e.g. teams, companies and networks. The practical aim is to develop bases to analyse and model virtual organizations. In the first chapter, reasons for the emergence of virtual organisations are discussed. The second chapter deals with the background of virtual organizations, the concept 'virtual organization' is defined, and different forms of virtual organizations as objects of the study are described. The third chapter summarizes some empirical findings concerning virtual organizations including three own case studies. Advantages, disadvantages and some managerial implications are presented. And finally, questions are dealt, what to study in virtual organizations, and how to study them empirically. This review is based on selected written material and on three own case studies.

Virtual Organizations: Trends and Models

IFIP – The International Federation for Information Processing

The need to remain competitive in the open market forces companies to concentrate on their core competencies while searching for alliances when additional skills or resources are needed to fulfill business opportunities. The changing business situation of companies and customer needs have motivated researchers to introduce Virtual Organization (VO) idea. A Virtual Organization is always a form of partnership and managing partners and handling partnerships are crucial. Virtual organizations are defined as a temporary collection of enterprises that cooperate and share resources, knowledge, and competencies to better respond to business opportunities. This paper presents base concepts of virtual organizations including properties, management concepts, operational concepts, and main issues in collaboration such as security and authentication.

Characteristics of virtual organizations

Organizational virtualness, 1998

VoNet the Newsletter @ http://www.virtual-organization.net as well as the newslist VoTalk celebrate their one year existence. In this time it has gained a lot of attention by researchers and also by managers. To concentrate on the topic of organizational virtualness we will organize a workshop for presentation and discussion of research in progress in April 1998. Virtualness -as we know from your contributions to VoNet and VoTalk -not only consists of computer mediated communication but also needs face-to-face meetings to intensify social connectivity and awareness among groups of people concerned with the same activities. Therefore we would be pleased to meet you for a two day workshop in Berne, Switzerland. The topic of the workshop will be organizational virtualness including all the research activities and practical experiences that focus on organizational structure, behavioral patterns and technological support of virtual organizations as well as virtual organizations in a global operation, the management of virtual global organizations, etc.

Approaches for the management of virtual organizations: Results from ECOLEAD

IFAC Conference on Cost Effective Automation in Networked Product Development and Manufacturing, 2007

A Virtual Organization (VO) consists of independent organizations collaborating for a common goal. Proper management is needed in order to achieve the objectives. The VO management has to enforce collaboration between independent partners with their own internal aims and own internal processes and management means. The paper presents results and solutions to support the management of virtual organizations in a dynamic environment.

VO breeding environments & virtual organizations integral business process management framework

Information Systems Frontiers, 2009

This paper presents a set of guidelines in terms of business process for VO Breeding Environments (VBEs) and Virtual Organizations (VOs) management based-on ECOLEAD Project Results. A detail description of an Integral Business Process Management (I-BPM) Framework, using Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is presented. The I-BPM framework describes a set of process models that depict what happens during each VBE and VO management processes, taking the point of view of an external observer, to provide rationale of activities that should be carried out by a set of VBE actors to achieve the expected business process results. , Springer Publisher, ISSN: 1387-3326 (Print) 1572-9419 (Online), Impact Factor 0.436 4

Virtual organizations: two choice problems

Proceedings of the international conference on …, 1998

This paper reviews some virtual organizations and the costs and benefits of being in a virtual organization. Particular emphasis is given to those costs and benefits deriving from the information technology and processes required to facilitate communication and transaction processing in virtual organizations. Using analytic models, this paper analyzes two problems faced by companies joining virtual organizations and by virtual organizations: