Engaging Organisational Culture to Overcome Social Barriers in Virtual Communites

Abstract

Recent trends in the technical development of information systems and their implementation have influenced academics to focus on specific aspects, particularly those systems that enhance and support organisational communication under physical limitations. The purpose of these ICTs is to bring together parties who are separated by those factors and allow them to collaborate and communicate for the purposes of their work without actually feeling the effect of time and distance. These tools have particular use for virtual organisations that operate in environments that are undefined physically in terms of space and time, yet allow information and knowledge to flow freely, therefore bridging the gap that is experienced by space, distance, and time. In traditional methods of face-to-face work, people are able to see and feel one another, factors that although may not seem so obviously important to begin with, are actually essential to cooperation and collaboration, because it is based on these physical cues that people begin to form the basic impressions and opinions upon which they base their trust of one another (Kreijns, Kirschner, & Jochems, 2003). Within the context of virtual work, particularly where people have never met, the basis for initial trust is missing and it seems that the success of working in virtual environments, or lack thereof, is fundamentally due to this.