@proceedings{6717, keywords = {Virtuality}, author = {Mary Watson-Manheim and Kevin Crowston and Katherine Chudoba}, title = {A New Perspective on "Virtual":Analyzing Discontinuities in the Work Environment}, abstract = {The word "virtual" has become a potent buzzword and, as such, is freely applied to many situations, with many meanings. As a result, it, like other buzzwords, is in danger of meaning nothing. In this paper, we develop a more precise understanding of the use of the word "virtual" to describe changing work environments. Our specific contribution is to propose a framework to classify these different work environments based on the type of discontinuities involved. This framework enables us to compare research across a variety of different topics and work settings and further develop a foundation for future research investigating managing and working in this new environment. In this paper; we test our framework by using it to classify 75 published articles on virtual work environments and from earlier research streams.}, year = {2002}, journal = {Proceedings of the 35th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICIS)}, address = {Kona, HI}, doi = {10.1109/HICSS.2002.994446}, }