Author(s)

J. Aderhold

Abstract

The euphoria initially experienced by the people in many virtual companies has now evaporated as, in the cold light of day, they are consciously reflecting on the phenomenon. They are turning back to traditional hierarchies although they still believe in values such as flexibility, self-organisation and personal responsibility. Yet the failing of many such virtual cooperations has less to do with the technical problems that are so often observed (although these are an important contributory factor); the greater problem is that many people can only cope with the insecurities of virtual structures to a certain degree, if indeed at all. These are precisely the problems we are going to examine here. We will begin by taking a closer look at the peculiarities of virtual companies – and we will see that they require a lot from

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