A metamodel for virtual enterprises

Virtual enterprises are characterized by their dynamic nature and transient work arrangements. This in turn requires computer support systems that go beyond workflow systems to provide support for process emergence and transient team members in such enterprises. Such support systems must be based on a metamodel that is sufficiently powerful to describe virtual work arrangements and present an interface that allows users to quickly form teams, allocate responsibilities, and carry out joint work. The paper describes a metamodel, which provides a foundation for building systems to support virtual enterprises, and a prototype system that supports this model. It then describes the use of the prototype in a teaching environment.

1 Introduction

The term virtual organization has come to mean different things in different contexts. One is where people are distributed within an organization. They carry out organizational tasks across distance with fixed team members. A stricter definition is where the teams themselves are fluid and change [9]. In such virtual environments teams may include participants, who may join the team for short periods of time to contribute special expertise whenever it is needed. Social criteria of quickly building trust between what may be transient members become important. Another dimension of virtual work is its knowledge intensive nature, which requires support for processes like those described in [10]. It also requires easy access to specialized knowledge [4], both explicit and tacit, and ways to combine such knowledge to create new knowledge forms. Large organizations have a further requirement. They need to strongly link a number of communities within the enterprise. This requires coordination of community activities towards a common goal.