Virtual Work Learning Objectives and Topics

What should be the learning objectives of a core business course on virtual work? There is sure to be a healthy diversity of opinion on this topic, as the potential scope of virtual work topics is large. Please add to and/or modify this initial set of learning objectives:

• To understand how existing organizational skills must change when engaged in remote work
• To appreciate the challenges of communicating across cultures
• To develop virtual work capabilities based on leading research and practice on remote interaction and computer mediated communication
• To enhance students’ ability to make effective decisions about leading and participating in virtual work structures

What topics would be valuable in a core virtual work course?

• How virtual structures are blurring traditional organizational boundaries and changing strategies (possibly with connections to Web 2.0 ideas of developing competencies at leveraging knowledge that does not reside within the firm)
• How different models for virtual work (virtual teams, virtual peer-to-peer interactions, virtual communities, virtual worlds) have arisen and the kinds of work that can be accomplished in each
• How computer-mediated communication differs from traditional; traps to avoid, skills to learn to excel at CMC, how social psychological processes complicate interaction in lean media
• Cultural and temporal challenges in working with globally distributed teams, including different preferences for interactivity, timing, etc. and what kinds of norms can be established to make teamwork more effective (Cramton articles on common knowledge)
• Platforms vs. channels for communication, how Web 2.0 technologies make different kinds of interactivity possible (McAfee SLATES article in SMR)
• Self-publishing as a work tool: how to think about writing for potentially large and unknown audiences
• Matching e-collaboration tools to the task: connecting functionality to business problems, and using different kinds of functionality most effectively
• virtual leadership: how traditional ideas of leading change in virtual contexts

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