Virtual Organizations in Practice: A European Perspective

The paper reports results from a European Union (EU) project dedicated to Virtual Organization (VO) research. It aims to consolidate VO reference models and related modeling methodologies based on experiences acquired in thirty relevant EU funded research projects. The research reveals the complex reality of deployment and adoption of VO practices and identifies a number of organizational, legal, economic, socio-cultural, and technical challenges faced by VOs, presented in the form of open questions for the research community

Low-Cost Broadband Connections: A Key Factor for SME Virtual Organizations

In an open global market, SMEs are facing new challenges while trying to compete with large worldwide corporations. The forming of innovative alliances, known as virtual organizations (VO), is one of the most interesting proposals to achieve competitiveness and exploit strategic advantages. However, besides the obvious positive potential of innovative actions like VOs, there are several drawbacks, especially when SMEs are involved in such projects. VOs have very high needs for IT and communications; in fact they rely so much on them that the forming of a VO is only possible with the development of an extensive information and communication infrastructure. A lot of innovating management, re-forming and re-structuring is involved in joining several independent companies into a new virtual schema and several cultural, economical and legislative problems must also be overcome. In this paper we focus on the technological needs, and in particular, the need for an organization-wide data sharing and communication network. The high cost involved with the investments necessary in IT and communications technology make the effort harder for SMEs, even if it was to be assumed that they could manage the other important aspects of forming a VO. Along with the cost of computer equipment and specialized software, networking cost has until recently been a particularly prohibiting factor for SMEs even on the most advanced business sectors. A new term, the “virtual organization technology threshold†is introduced, defined as the minimum of IT and communication technologies necessary to form a “true†virtual organization, in its pure and functional form described and widely adopted by the scientific community. The investments needed for IT and communications to form a VO are analyzed and compared to the related investments of conventional SMEs in EU. The evolution in the cost, focused around the networking tools, is then examined to extract useful information about the feasibility of such specialized investments compared to the overall investment and turnovers of typical SMEs. We then argue that a recent development, the price drop and wide spread of broadband connections can act as a “key factor†that could make the difference in lowering the “threshold†and increasing the possibilities for SMEs to compete successfully by utilizing technological advantages and innovations that have until now considered to be more suitable for larger enterprises.

Grid computing as an integrating force in virtual enterprises

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2003.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-80).by Hongfei Tian.M.Eng

Capacity management requirements for virtual enterprises

Transformations in the marketplace have led manufacturing companies to focus ontheir core competences and compete through new forms of enterprise partnerships. A newconcept of enterprise partnership is that of Virtual Enterprise wherein autonomous or independentcompanies come together to temporally address a specific market demand, by collaboratingclosely and presenting to the market as a single enterprise. A number of traditional operationsmanagement models or techniques need to be redesigned in order to cope with the demandsbrought by the implementation of the Virtual Enterprise concept.This paper attempts to ascertain the understanding that exist about the concept of VirtualEnterprise as well as its associated managerial challenges. Then, focusing on the issues ofmanufacturing capacity management, the requirements for an effective deployment of thisfunction in a Virtual enterprise environment are described

An inter-organization workflow management system for virtual enterprises

Master'sMASTER OF SCIENC

Elaboration of a Model of Temporary Cooperation in Tourism’ Destination Promotion A Systematic Literature Review

The literature considers cooperation as the best way for a region to achieve a competitive advantage in global, digital markets, and as taking a key role in achieving the promotion of a comprehensive, sustainable destination. In recent years, the body of research on cooperation in tourism has grown considerably, listing several opportunities for decreasing competitive pressure among local tourism actors, while gaining the superior advantages of collaboration. At the same time, the literature does not suggest particular models of cooperation for the tourism industry, as most are borrowed from the manufacturing industry, where cooperation seems widely used and further adapted for the tourism domain. Through an in-depth systematic literature review, this paper matches the theories on cooperation in tourism with the concept of temporary cooperation, in order to adapt a model widely considered in several domains, the virtual enterprise (VE), to the peculiarities of the tourism industry. The adaptation is considered according to the particularities of the tourism industry, and especially when cooperation involves local tourism authorities in global turbulent markets. A cycle model consisting of nine-stages life was built, highlighting the main features of a temporary alliance among authorities: the pivotal role of the destination management organization, the relevance of information and communication technologies for the VE’s operability, the short lifetime of the VE, and the destination’s overall promotion

Supporting Virtual Enterprise Systems Using Agent Coordination

International audienceOpen environments like the Internet or corporate intranets enable a large number of interested enterprises to access, filter, process, and present information on an as-needed basis. These environments support modern applications, such as virtual enterprises and inter-organizational workflow management systems, which involve a number of heterogeneous resources, services, and processes. However, any execution of a virtual enterprise system would yield to disjoining and error-prone behavior without appropriate techniques to coordinate the various business processes. This paper reports on the design and implementation of a flexible agent-based framework for supporting the coordination of virtual enterprises and workflow management systems. The paper also shows how an agent coordination infrastructure, which is explained by social constraints, can impact on the engineering of highly dynamic virtual enterprises and workflow management systems by presenting a simple case study