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

2 Characteristics of the virtual organization
2.1 Introduction
Ce sont les lapins qui ont été étonnes!
(A. Daudet, Lettres de mon moulin)
We think of ourselves as living in an age of change; change
unprecedented; change of a complexity that enfolds and drives
us in a way and at a rate unknown just a generation ago – or so
it seems to us. Perhaps each generation marvels afresh at change
and its burdens.
Whether or not change and its rate are new on this scale we are
certainly seeing an overwhelming abundance of new technologies,
with concomitant newness of usage and procedures by
which we achieve goals and complete tasks. In dealing with
change and complexity, our need for information typically
increases, while our ability to find all the requisite knowledge
and skills within one individual decreases. We become increasingly
reliant on working with teams of people, on the more
effective dissemination and exchange of information amongst
group members, and on the more effective coordination and
management of disparate activities and individuals with multiple
and often conflicting perspectives and objectives.
The more recent developments such as the Internet, intranets
and extranets, which facilitate networks both within and
between organizations, mean that in certain circumstances, the
former requirement for collocation of people, tasks, resources all
at much the same time has to some extent disappeared. This
results in fundamental changes and rethinks to potential and
satisfactory organizational structures, and also to the way in