The current merging of computer and communication technologies is facilitating the trend toward the virtual workplace. As the growth in the virtual workplace accelerates, organizations face new challenges to cope with their new organizational structure.
The Virtual Workplace explores the forces that are driving this phenomenon and the consequential issues and problems that will influence the globalization of the virtual workplace by offering a wide and rich array of factors such as social issues, legal concerns and performance compensations. It examines the creation of the virtual workplace, its management and expected impacts of consequences on individuals, groups, organizations, societies and nations. It focuses on what organizations and individuals need to know and understand to succeed in the changing environment of the workplace. To understand these challenges, organizations need to develop strategies to support what Peter Drucker called "moving work to where people are, rather than people to where the work is." Information technologies are playing a key role in enabling people to work at a distance from a central conventional office. This book will teach you what the virtual workplace is, what forms it takes, how to make it work successfully, how to avoid some common problems, how information technology can enable individuals and organizations to successfully implement the virtual workplace and what its impact will be.