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

e-Business Strategies for Virtual Organizations
Figure 2.3
Virtual organizational
structure
24
workers already supplied with offices and equipment, but if the
need for these skills is very temporary, then it is less of a
problem to dispense with the outsourcing arrangement than to
make permanent workers redundant. The expectations of
outworkers or contract employees differ from that of permanent
employees. Furthermore, persons in such arrangements can
organize their lives in a manner appropriate to the
arrangement.
2.5.2 The art of alliances
Another organizational design strategy that is fundamental to
the creation and maintenance of virtual organizations is the
formation of alliances. The objective here is similar to outsourcing.
It is to enhance and augment the skill and competency
profile of the virtual organization both quickly and effectively.
Suppose that organizations 1 and 2 collaborate on a certain
range of products that they manufacture and sell, and need a
new set of skills plus some new capital equipment in order to
design and produce a new product that changing market
demand has shown could be profitably manufactured and sold
(see Figure 2.3).
Organization 3 has a department with a number of employees
with the required design skills and who are not fully occupied at
present. Organization 4 has capital equipment that is essential to
the manufacture and testing of the new product line, and that
equipment has spare capacity in the evenings and at the
weekends. Organization 5 has the computer software that is
needed to design the product range. It also has spare computer