Discontinuities and continuities: A new way to understand virtual work

"Virtual’’ is a potent buzzword, freely applied to many situations, with many meanings. In this exploratory study, we develop a more precise understanding of "virtual’’ to describe changing work environments. Specifically, we propose a framework to classify work environments based on the type of discontinuities involved. Discontinuities are gaps or a lack of coherence in aspects of work. The framework allows us to compare research across different topics and work settings.