Virtual organizations: Computer conferencing and organizational design

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Abstract
Computer conferencing systems link groups of users who “meet”; in the virtual space of a computer and interact around a common purpose or topic. These electronically constituted and mediated groups can mirror, cross‐cut, or hive off from existing organizational structures. This article reports a study of organizational structuring processes that accompany the introduction of a computer conferencing system in six industrial organizations. The relationships among technological capabilities and constraints, existing organization structures, managerial intent, and the unanticipated consequences of implementation for structural change are discussed. Employing the same software system in each case, organizational outcomes are radically different. Earlier analysts have focused on a contingency model of the organization‐to‐technology relationship. Computer conferencing systems, however, confound the distinction between technical and organizational systems; they exist in an overlapping border domain between their two parent systems. This article explores the character of this overlapping domain and proposes the terms “virtual group”; and “virtual organization”; to evoke the special status of groups created through computer conferencing. Virtual organizations are semiotic entities in Weick's [1] sense of equivoque and their essentially ambiguous, interpretable character is important in shaping organizational outcomes. Virtual groups become part of the ongoing process of structuration [2], while also providing a new tool for organizational design.