The Socio-Technical Virtual Organisation

Background

It has been remarked that there are as many definitions of “Virtual Organisation” as there are researchers in the field (Metselaar & Van Dael, 1999). In practice, these definitions tend to fall roughly onto a spectrum with an emphasis on the sharing of physical resources such as storage and processing power at one end and an emphasis on exploiting novel aggregations of knowledge, skills and capacity at the other. At the more ‘resource-oriented’ end of the spectrum, VOs are often characterised by relative stability; well-defined central or hierarchical management; well-defined access to resources across simple interfaces; easily-defined tasks; and a set of well-understood, well-communicated common goals (Foster, 2001). An example is an outsourced data processing facility, where data is securely shipped off-site for manipulation by third-party algorithms using grid technology because the client does not possess either appropriate algorithms or required processing power in-house. The problems and issues associated with these types of VO are largely technical, including: