[8] 2002 e-business-strategies-for-virtual-organizations

e-Business Strategies for Virtual Organizations
11.11 Summary
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� Protect your future by securing access to key intangible
assets.
� Create world class alliance opportunities.
� Position early and shape the market.
� Clearly identify global and local capabilities and focus.
This power balance between local and global is not clear cut
since globally distributed organizations obviously have to
contend with disparities of culture within as well as without the
organization. A recent report from the OECD would suggest
that an alternative approach might be appropriate and cites the
‘learning city’ concept as an alternative approach. Europe has
led the way in establishing the learning city concept with
examples in Poitiers in France, Jena, in Germany, Oresund
region of Scandinavia, Andalusia in Spain and Kent Thamesside
area of London, UK. These purpose-built cities or regions
have advanced communications infrastructures but also a
commitment to place innovation and learning at the core of the
development. Firms and knowledge institutions clustered in the
same location have greater opportunities to share a culture and
understanding that facilitate the process of social interaction and
learning where no institution has a monopoly on knowledge.
Virtual organizations may need to reconsider the extent to
which embedded globalization will leave them at a
disadvantage.
It may well be that such strategies are only appropriate for
organizations with Western-based strategic management concepts.
In Singapore the development of an information society
based on virtual organizations may well be restricted by the
political control over information flow and the current stage of
democracy at this stage of Singapore’s development. Similar
issues and concerns have been raised by the World Bank in their
2000 report and frequently by groups such as OECD. This whole
area of socio-economic change and the impacts of globalization
merits discussion in the world arena.
For the virtual organization playing in a global world there are
no rules but many lessons to be learned from multinational and
cross-cultural organizations around the world. Those that
survive accept a much broader portfolio of concerns and apply
constant reappraisals to their marketplace. The virtual organization
which does not realize this should be renamed the
vulnerable organization.