Redefining and Measuring Virtual Work in Teams: An Application of Social Network Analysis

For several decades organizational researchers have explored the practice of using electronic technology to communicate when team members work physically apart from each other. Yet despite a growing body of research in the areas of telework and virtual teams, findings regarding the antecedents and outcomes of virtual work have often been inconsistent and many questions remain [1, 2]. One possible reason for the equivocality of findings regarding this practice is the lack of a common definition and method of measuring virtual work. The purpose of this paper is to present a definition and measure of virtual work that can capture the practice in a variety of settings. I integrate work from studies on telework and virtual teams to present a new definition of virtual work. I propose using social network analysis as a tool to measure virtual work scope, an individual?s level of virtual work practice in teams.