Online Teaching as Virtual Work in the New (Political) Economy

Online teaching and learning has been adopted throughout higher education with minimal critical attention to the challenges it poses to traditional definitions of academic labor. This chapter explores four areas where the nature of academic labor becomes contestable through the introduction of online instruction: (1) the boundaries demarcating work from personal time; (2) the relative invisibility of online labor; (3) the documentation, recognition, and rewards attendant to online instruction; and (4) the illusory empowerment of online students as consumers. The theory and practice of what constitutes “legitimate” labor in higher education require substantial reconsideration to incorporate the online dimension.

Communication, Structural Links, and Conflict in Three Inter-Organizational Virtual Collaborations

Conflict is just as common in virtual teams as it is in collocated teams. However little is known about the process of conflict in these teams. The study presented in this chapter analyzed conflict in three inter-organizational teams. The purpose of this research is to identify primary types of conflict in virtual teams, examine the role that the structure of communication plays in the conflict, and examine the influence of the social context. Specifically, this chapter (1) reviews the extant literature on conflict in virtual teams and organizational conflict in general; (2) presents results from a study of three inter-organizational virtual team collaborations; and (3) offers an outline of potential future research in this area and provides best practices and potential pitfalls for practitioners to consider when structuring inter-organizational virtual teams.

Structuring a Local Virtual Work Ecology for a Collaborative, Multi-Institutional Higher Educational Project

This chapter focuses on a multi-institutional shared curricular-build project (2009) out of Kansas State University, Johnson County Community College, Kansas City Kansas Community College, and Dodge City Community College. This project involved the building of a range of digital learning objects for modules for an online course that will be taught at the various institutions in both online and hybrid formats. This collaboration is unique in that it brought together experts from cross-functional domains (from both the empirical sciences and the humanities) for an interdisciplinary freshman level course. The team collaborated virtually through computer mediated communications and built e-learning based on instructional design precepts. The curriculum was built to the standards of the public health domain field, the Quality Matters™ rubric (for e-learning standards), federal accessibility guidelines, intellectual property laws, and technological interoperability standards (with the curriculum to be delivered through four disparate learning / course management systems). This chapter focuses on the socio-technical structuring of a local virtual work ecology to support this “Pathways to Public Health” project.

Engineers' Perceptions of Relational Limitations Intrinsic to Virtual Work

Virtual work is increasingly prevalent in organizational settings. Many corporations communicate virtually to reduce travel and facility costs and expedite production. Benefits of employees communicating virtually are recognizable and advantageous, but the benefits can come at a price—decreased human interactions. This study explored engineers’ perceptions of relational limitations inherent to virtual work. Engineers enrolled in a communication course who use virtual work methods on the job comprised the sample. Qualitative content analysis revealed engineers perceive virtual work as a convenient and easy-to-use medium that bridges geography, curtails expenses, expedites meetings, and allows flex time. Conversely, engineers reported several relational limitations associated with virtual work, including reduced personal interactions, diminished nonverbal cues, increased miscommunications, added interference, and weakened interpersonal skills. Engineers exercise supplemental face-to-face communication, occasional on-site meetings, and social activities to counter virtual relational limitations. A social exchange theoretical perspective explains engineers’ continued use of virtual work.

Examining Tensions in Telework Policies

This chapter examines workplace policies related to virtual work, with a specific focus on telework policies. Such policies are important to successful telework in communicating rules and expectations and providing a basis for negotiation between individual teleworkers and their employers. A content analysis of 35 state government telework policies revealed that such policies are characterized by two major tensions between autonomy and control and between flexibility and rigidity. The first tension relates to issues such as individual versus organizational responsibility for monitoring performance, providing equipment, and ensuring physical and data security, while the second tension relates to the standardization of working hours and eligibility criteria, whether rules are clear or left ambiguous, and the degree of work/family balance. Although explicit contradictions between stated benefits and realities of telework implementation may be problematic, most of the policies used tension productively by providing enough ambiguity to allow for competing individual and organizational interests to co-exist. Practical implications for teleworkers and their managers are suggested.

Aided System of Competence Management for Virtual Team Building Adapted to Specific Needs of Design Projects

Virtual instruments and tools are future trends in Engineering which are due to the growing complexity of engineering tasks. Individuals who are working in Virtual Teams must be equipped with spanning competencies that provide a basis for Virtual Team building. In the first step this chapter gives a broad insight to the field of Competence Management and Virtual Teams. The second step responds to the need of a method of Competence Management to build Virtual Teams that are active in virtual design projects in the area of New Product Development (NPD). Due to the systemic approach of the functional analysis, we present an Aided Competence Management for Virtual Team Building System (Aided CMVTB System) that permits to be adapted not only to organizations but also to design projects without a real organizational structure. The focus of this work is set on the generic aspect to highlight the adaptability and flexibility of the system.

Power and Trust in the Virtual Workplace

How we work in an increasingly computer-mediated world requires new ways of understanding the construction of teams, their co-construction of tacit knowledge to make sense of the organization, and their use of emergent technologies. We posit an alternative research perspective –that of the communities of practice construct – allows a fuller understanding of the relationships of power and trust in team behaviors and processes. The communities-of-practice model provides an avenue to examine the intricate dance that trust and power perform in virtual environments, with people as the focal point. It is how people interact with each other, with in technology, to be or become successful virtually that is the focus of this chapter. We explore trust and power in virtual or blended work environments using a reflexive autoethnographic narrative, comprised of three case studies, grounded in the larger context of the organizational communication literature.

Sense of Community in Professional Virtual Communities

Sense of virtual community (feelings of identity, belonging, and attachment) is an essential component of virtual communities. In this chapter, we develop a model of how sense of virtual community develops in professional virtual communities. Based on sense of virtual community models in social virtual communities, we expect that the exchange of support, development of a group identity, and group norms will lead to a stronger professional sense of virtual community. Unlike social virtual communities, we also predict that employee/members occupational identification will increase professional sense of virtual community, particularly when the virtual community can provide support and information not available in the employee/member’s face-to-face life. Finally, we propose that increased occupational commitment, professional networks, and employee performance are outcomes of sense of virtual community in professional virtual communities.

Virtual Mentoring

With the proliferation of information technology and its saturation within homes, classrooms, and organizations, the traditional landscape of mentoring relationships is quickly becoming a faceless phenomenon. Virtual mentoring is rapidly being the more preferred way to initiate mentor and protégé relationships because of constraints that prevent people from meeting face-to-face. It is through this computer-mediated method of interaction where benefits surface that increase computer-mediate dialogue, allow for the free exchange of knowledge and information regardless of an individual’s role within the interaction, and provides women a channel to voice their opinions and ideas free from gender bias. Outside of these benefits; however, limitations do exist that should be closely monitored so that the continued success of virtual mentoring can remain a viable option.

The Amplification of Power Dynamics in Virtual Work

This chapter examines how power dynamics are manifested in virtual work. It starts with a look at how power is demonstrated in traditional decision making, and progresses to an exploration of how some organizations are experimenting with different forms of e-participation. Two cases are presented to illustrate some of the decisions associated with the implementation of information and communication technology (ICT), and the consequences of those choices. The first case looks at President Obama’s platform on technology and how his administration has embraced it to expand his vision of democracy in the information age. The second case portrays a utility company seeking to increase the involvement of its stakeholders through the creation of a blog site for the exclusive use of its community council. Both cases reveal a complex view of how organizations attempting to increase participation can paradoxically find themselves stifling it.