Parallel Virtual Organizations

Abstract

The growing presence in the workplace of computers that are linked together to form intraorganizational networks (intranets), thus enabling unprecedented electronic employee connectedness, contains within it a collision between the traditional hierarchically organized physical workplace and the potentially chaotic virtual workplace. This article describes this new workplace context as a parallel virtual organization (PVO) that possesses its own values and culture independent of its host culture, the traditional bureaucratic hierarchical organization (BHO). The growth of PVOs means that a transitional space must be developed initially between them and their BHO counterparts to enable the eventual merger of the two organization forms to create a new, more dynamic, and fluid organization that, by its nature, innovates to keep pace with rapid and unrelenting change in the marketplace. The psychological, social, and technical aspects of the rise of the parallel virtual organization are discussed.