Exploring the Nature of Virtuality

Abstract:

There has been considerable interest in the topic of virtuality over the last few years among both academics and practitioners. The focus of attention has generally been on how to improve collaboration and knowledge sharing, how to develop trust and cohesiveness within virtual organizations, virtual teams and virtual communities, and how to best support virtual interactions. Underlying this research area is the assumption that we possess sufficient understanding about the nature of virtuality and that we know how to distinguish ‘what is virtual’ to ‘what is not virtual’. Even though several of us have attempted on various occasions to make a contribution in this field, we increasingly recognize that the nature of virtuality has not been well conceptualized in the literature. Part of the reason for this is that researchers, including us, often have the tendency to compare the virtual (distributed and CMC-based) to the traditional (collocated, and face-to-face) environment. We question this purely technological distinction, but recognize that virtuality, as an IT-enabled phenomenon, is increasingly extending its reach, becoming more global and more pervasive across all spheres of society. The theme of this panel is to examine, appreciate, and debate the multi-dimensional nature of what virtuality has been, is, and may become-specifically, its global and local dimensions, including the different interpretations that are and should be given to these dimensions.

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