Inside the Virtual Workplace: Forging a New Deal for Work and Rewards

Abstract

This article discusses the challenges that companies face when trying to create virtual corporations. It describes the competitive environment that created the virtual organization, illustrates the changes with three developmental models, and describes a New Deal employment relationship that replaces lifetime employment and requires changes to work and rewards systems. To creative an effective New Deal, companies must accept that the Old Deal is gone. They also must focus on processes, not functions; develop such virtual relationships as alliances, joint ventures, and partnerships; and send clear messages to employees for a workable policy.

The case for complexity: A look at the relationship between individual and structure from the inside out

“…Intense interest has arisen in variants that are flat (Likert, 1967) or delayered, flexible, organic (Burns and Stalker, 1961), entrepreneurial, informal (Blau, 1965), collateral (Rubinstein and Woodman, 1984), team-based (e.g. triads, matrix, self-selected work groups), knowledge-based and knowledge-intensive (Starbuck, 1992), self-organizing (Saarel, 1995), modular (Tully, 1993), postmodern (Browning et al, 1992), spherical (Miles and Snow, 1995), virtual (Crandall and Wallace, 1997) and networked (Powell, 1990;Ibarra, 1992). The focus in the remainder of this section is on this last kind of variation, an innovation that is becoming increasingly prevalent, especially at the inter-organizational level.…”

Social comparison in virtual work environments: An examination of contemporary referent selection

“…For now, further discussion and a better understanding of the virtual work environment seem warranted. Crandall and Wallace (1997) described three degrees of virtualness for the workplace:…”

“…Hence, in the telecommuting stage, employees operate from distant locations (Cleaver, 2000). Crandall and Wallace (1997) noted that this stage has objectives such as increased flexibility, and cost and time reductions, allowing employees to work from home. A growing number of corporations have embraced this type of work structure to some extent (Cleaver, 2000;Goldsborough, 2000;Weisenfeld et al, 2001).…”

“…Employees work from mobile, remote, or customer locations. According to Crandall and Wallace (1997), ''Ties to the physical office are loosened and relationships with the customer are strengthened'' (p. 28). In the cyberlink stage, work between various organizational entities and peripheral organizations is managed and coordinated by the virtual organization.…”

“…Thus, virtual firms may be little more than a shell, performing only one or two key functions and not much more.' ' Crandall and Wallace (1997) described this stage as the highest level of ''virtualness'' achievable by an organization. Employees and customers ''remain virtually linked, exchanging ideas and information in person and electronically -sometimes never even meeting face-toface -until business opportunities have been fully realized'' (Crandall & Wallace, 1997, p. 29).…”