Cross-Organization Virtual CoPs in E-Tourism: Assembling Information-Based Products

Abstract

This chapter describes recent work and experience in setting up and supporting cross-organization virtual communities of practice to facilitate new product development. The authors’ reference domain is tourism and the community’s joint enterprise is assembly of vacation packages. The chapter contrasts existing practices involved in building vacation packages against the computer-mediated practices flourishing in an electronic village of local interest on regional tourism. The electronic village is considered as an aggregation of thematic virtual communities (i.e., neighborhoods) each with own rules, policies and primitive offerings covering tourism services such as accommodation, transportation, cultural resources, etc. Electronic squads are formed as cross-neighborhood communities of practice to engage in computermediated assembly of vacation packages. The chapter presents key tasks involved in managing both electronic squads and the workflows through which the shared resources are combined and transformed into new collective offerings.