Understanding Virtual Organizations

This article, by Les Pang Ph.D., does an excellent job of defining the various areas and concepts of a virtual organization sometimes referred to as the acronym VO. “Virtual” derives from the Latin “vir” (“man” in an idealized sense), from which developed the Latin “virtus” (strength, manliness, virtue). In Middle English, the adjective meant “possessed of certain physical virtues.” By modern times, it had come to mean, as defined in Webster’s dictionary, “being in essence or effect but not in fact.” In general, virtual means the quality of affecting something without actually being that something. In information technology, there seems to be a virtual version of (virtually) everything. A virtual organization is often associated with such terms as virtual office, virtual teams, and virtual leadership. The goal of a virtual organization is the same as in a traditional office environment, to provide innovative, high-quality products or services in response to customer demands. Please read more

Virtual Glossary


Virtual Operation

A virtual operation is an organization that conducts its business leveraging digital technology by personnel who are not co-located in a building.  All communications are conducted on the phone or the internet; business functions are conducted online.


Telework is a broad term, referring to substituting telecommunications for any form of work-related travel.  It’s more progressive than “telecommuting” because it implies the use of technology for all work activities, ex. meetings, educational conferences and collaboration.


An individual who performs work using telecommunications tools and software to deliver job expectations.


An individual working for a brick and mortar who performs work from a location outside the office setting, anywhere from one to four days out of the work week.

Remote Worker

An individual working for a brick and mortar who performs work from a location outside the office setting on a full time basis.


A technical term best described by NetworkWorld as: software that separates a run-time process from the underlying infrastructure that supports the process. Server virtualization, for instance, separates the application from the physical server.