The Myth of the Virtual Organization

Abstract

This chapter examines the contemporary fascination with seemingly uncontrollable, de-physicalized, yet transcendent, virtual or imaginary organizations (Davidlow and Malone, 1992; Hedberg et al., 2000), based on the self-serving actions of Sovereign Individuals (Thorne, 2004; Thorne and Kouzmin, 2004), operating in the newly emergent epoch of global cyberspace. In general terms, this chapter adopts Armstrong’s (2005) conviction that human beings have always been mythmakers and that mythmaking is fundamental to the human condition. This chapter also relies on Warner’s (1994) notion of NeoBarthesian (1957) ‘monster myths’ which conceal political motives and secretly circulate ideological positions and her contrasting notion of ‘educative’ myths, which are not always delusions but are vigorous ways of leading one to ‘make sense of universal matters’ (Warner, 1994, p. xiii) to recover the purposeful illusions behind the beguiling spells cast by the ‘modern myths’ of virtual or imaginary organizations.