We Have Always Been Virtual

Abstract

Accounts of virtual organization have been couched in terms of concepts and metaphors that do not inherit from the features of a coherent theory of virtuality. Arguing that virtuality is inherent in modernity, this article focuses on three major drivers behind the current wave of virtualization of organizational work practices to explore the interplay of the virtual and the concrete. Using three vignettes as an illustration, the article discusses how organizations, through writing, make the presence of humans contingent; through technology, displace human action into artifacts, machines, or electronic devices; and through institutions, virtualize (conflicting and sometimes collaborative) human relations and proximal encounters. However, the process of virtualization does not only deterritorialize existing skills and relations, but it also generates new skills, which in their turn impose a reterritorialization process.