Abstract

The "virtual office" is a new organizational form born of recent technological advances. The new structure raises a number of issues explored in this paper: the role of computer mediated communication in developing an organizational culture; whether the virtual office is truly post-bureaucratic or simply a new method for exercising control; and the tension between the stated objectives of an organization that has "gone virtual" and the members' actual experience of the virtual office.

Key words: technology, control, post-bureaucratic form, organizational culture

The Virtual Office: From the Iron Cage to the Doghouse

"Managers saw themselves as the central players and, therefore, assumed that they needed to control everything. That no longer works in a world that moves as quickly as ours."

Jay Chiat, see footnote 1

"This whole time we'd thought the problem was bureaucracy. Turns out, it was control all along."

Stanley Deetz, see footnote 2

The virtual office is the latest trend to seize the imagination of corporate executives, tantalizing them with the promise of lowered overhead, increased productivity and enhanced innovation. Like total quality management, reengineering, the learning organization and other previously favored mini-revolutions, this one will undoubtedly retain only a moderate portion of its early adherents. Even so, it raises a number of interesting questions for organizational communication scholars to investigate. The new exotic wave, referred to here as "the virtual office," is also known, in subtle variations, as hoteling, moteling, and non-territorial office solutions.

These terms describe a radical change in office planning from assigning each worker a dedicated space to temporarily allocating offices to employees whenever the space is specifically needed. The rest of the time, the workers may be visiting clients off-site, meeting and working in office conference rooms or lounges, or telecommuting from their homes, cars or hotel rooms. When workers do need a dedicated office for a day, they sign up for one with a "concierge." The office is no longer a status symbol, but a tool, akin to other office equipment. Organizations are able to reduce sharply their real estate costs, since non-territorial offices tend to be much smaller than traditionally designed workspaces.

What is "virtual" about this new design? It is our taming of the cyberspace frontier that permits this shift in office style. Technological innovations from the last several years allow workers to communicate by electronic mail, portable telephones, fax machine and paging systems. Group software systems are able to provide an online virtual office where electronic files are stored and shared. Paper correspondence and contracts can easily be scanned to convert to an online format. Indeed, there are forms of virtual offices more truly "virtual" than the one being discussed here, as it is now possible to be fully linked through computers and not necessarily to have any physically shared space.

This paper sets the virtual office in the larger context of the organizational form and changing technology relationship, then discusses the issues I think will be important in considering the new form from a cultural perspective: how the tension between managerial control and the independence of virtual workers is sustained or resolved and whether the virtual office is a step into post-bureaucracy or simply a twisted rendition of the iron cage. As an example, I offer the example of one of the pioneers of the virtual office territory, the advertising agency Chiat/Day. My impressions of Chiat/Day thus far are based upon numerous articles in the popular press about the company, the way the organization depicts itself in its extensive site on the World Wide Web (Chiat/Day, 1995), and several conversations with one of the organization's members, as well as a tour of its L.A. facility.

Setting the Stage: Technology and Organizations

Technology's impact on organizational form is of course not new to the virtual office wave. Fulk and DeSanctis (1995) recall that the invention of filing cabinets helped create bureaucracy; and telephones, the telegraph and postal service fostered the development of distributed forms of organizations. These authors point to the reciprocal relationship between information technology and organizational forms: changes in organizational form may allow for new technological designs to be developed, while technology creates the possibility of changes in organizational form. The new technologies enable changed forms because they offer ways to overcome constraints on time and distance (Fulk & DeSanctis, 1995).

A number of organizational theorists and practitioners are currently grappling with the new forms of organizations that both advances in technology and pressures in the economy are creating. A couple of taxonomies are particularly useful for thinking about the virtual office. Nohria and Berkley (1994) describe the features of the virtual organization as (1) electronic files replaced by material ones; (2) increased computer mediated communication in primary activities and increased emphasis on informal, face to face communication in maintaining organizational coherence; (3) structures consisting of the organization of information and technology instead of people, i.e., they appear structureless; (4) ambiguous external boundaries; (5) global, cross-functional computer mediated jobs. Heckscher's (1994) post-bureaucratic or interactive organization features the additional characteristics of (1) consensus created through institutionalized dialogue; (2) influence of persuasion rather than commands; (3) trust based on interdependence; (4) strong emphasis on mission; (5) open sharing of information about strategy; (6) principles replacing rules; (7) fluid decision-making processes; and (8) wider, more diverse influence relationships, including more temporary networks. Fulk and DeSanctis (1995) also emphasize that these new forms have coordination-intense structures. Workflows are changing now that there is no longer a need to be close physically to coordinate horizontally; workflow coordination has become more of an electronic task than a physical one.

The one characteristic of the organization of the future all theorists seem to agree on is that it will have a much flatter hierarchy than those of traditional bureaucracies. One technology-driven impetus for this shift is that electronic mail and electronic conferencing "permit employees to develop ever-shifting organizational 'structures' that decrease the importance of formal hierarchies and organizational boundaries" (Nohria & Berkley, 1994, p. 120). Allowing for greater electronic connectivity encourages the emergence of new structural forms. Hierarchical organizations traditionally achieved control through the rationalization of activities. Contemporary organizations instead find technology-based control reduces the need for human-based control. Fulk and DeSanctis (1995) argue that flatter organizations are becoming more common because of this reduction in the need for vertical control.

While these authors elucidate the features of the post-bureaucratic form, they also state that in no case have these qualities been fully achieved within one organization. Heckscher (1994) lists his characteristics as a prototype or an ideal form and, with colleagues Eisenstat and Rice (1994), demonstrates the difficulties inherent in the transformation.

Nohria and Berkley (1994), who also agree that the virtual organization is more of a vision than a practical reality, remind us that organizations have always been virtual in the sense that they are fictions, not physical entities. Perhaps the new forms will help us to focus more on organizing and less on the organization (as Weick, 1979, proposes). They cite Stone (1992) who "emphasizes the power of technology to reconfigure social space and social interaction" (Nohria & Berkley, 1994, p. 114). This promises exciting opportunities for communication scholars to consider these reconfigurations in organizations that are evolving into these new shapes.

Three questions seem particularly salient in the virtual office. First, how different is the new form? In other words, is there anything really new about the virtual office or is it simply bureaucracy forced to fit a slightly bent iron cage? Second, accepting for a moment the premise that this form is new at least in several of the qualities ascribed to post-bureaucracies, how are organizational cultures emerging differently than they did in traditional organizations? Are attempts being made to create some new kind of culture, more suitable to the virtual office? Third, how are traditional forms of control being replaced in the virtual office? Do employees identify with the organization, despite their physical dispersion and lack of a home-away-from-home in their offices? If identification is no longer applicable, what is replacing it? Are organizations able to instill in their workers some sense of community that creates enough loyalty to prevent turnover and ensure appropriate organizational decisions?

Virtual Culture

The tool with the greatest potential for solving the organizational dilemma of how to create identification and commitment in the virtual office depends again on communication technology, the very factor that poses the dilemma. Despite early theorists' depiction of computer mediated communication as lacking social presence (Short, Williams & Christie, 1976), incapable of adequately conveying equivocal content (Daft, Lengel & Trevino, 1987) and suppressing social cues resulting in deindividuation (Sproull & Kiesler, 1986), the phenomenal growth in internet use and the creation of online communities clearly contradicts these early impressions.

A large number of researchers are now contributing efforts which show that distinct cultures do emerge in computer mediated communication (cmc), dependent on users' appropriation of the technology (Baym, 1995). Many agree that "highly interpersonally involving interactions ... consistently occur over electronic mail" (Fulk, Schmitz & Steinfield, 1990, p. 130) although electronic mail had been originally considered a low social presence medium. Specifically addressing early claims about the lack of social presence in cmc, Walther's (1995; Walther & Burgoon, 1992) research program demonstrates that personal relationships can emerge in cmc. He argues that given enough time, some cmc groups will show an even greater sense of immediacy, affection, similarity and liking than face to face groups. Rheingold's (1993) tale of the rich and varied communities that are proliferating in computer networks exemplifies the interpersonal nature of online communication.

Studies specific to the organizational context have also succeeded in demonstrating the development of what would be considered relatively personal communication online. Fulk, Schmitz and Steinfield (1990) argue that co-workers exert social influence over each other through both overt statements and vicarious learning. Steinfield's (1990) case study of Xerox illustrates the varied uses of electronic mail and distribution lists including brainstorming ideas, providing feedback on reports, organizing social activities and participating in entertaining conversations or games. Steinfield notes that during his study, task and social uses of the electronic mail system were equally prevalent. Management supported the social uses, deciding their benefits outweighed the costs, particularly since increased contacts were made in social use that could later become valuable in task activities, the quality of work life was improved, and a number of people felt the system fostered enhanced creativity.

While research hasn't yet addressed the issue directly, these pieces of evidence lead to the conclusion that strong organizational cultures may be formed in computer mediated interactions. Orlikowski, Yates, Okamura, and Fujimoto (1995) show how use of newsgroups and distribution lists can flourish in an organization under the right conditions. Once fostered, the online communication seems to take on its own active life. Garton and Wellman (1995) summarize the literature on electronic mail in organizations and note that it can increase both the number and range of contacts among workers. Finholt and Sproull (1990) found that electronic mail was used extensively for informal interaction. Combined, these findings indicate the enormous potential of electronic mail to overcome the isolation and alienation we could expect to find in a virtual office, where people have little reason to interact formally or with any regularity.

Post-Bureaucratic Control

One of the greatest concerns for the virtual office will be determining how control will be exercised. Traditional control is a matter of directly influencing work behavior. In this new form where face to face contact is either minimal or fleeting, typical bureaucratic control based on supervision will have to be replaced. Organizational identification has already supplanted traditional control in many organizations. According to Tompkins and Cheney's (1983, 1985) theory, identification occurs when organizational values have been instilled in an organization's members to the extent that members call upon organizational premises when making decisions. Successful organizational identification is not effortlessly achieved. The organization initiates the process by communicating its values, interests and goals, and the employee completes the identification process by making the choice to identify (Tompkins & Cheney, 1983). Therefore, identification is not a stable, static construct, but one that is negotiated by employee and employer (Bullis & Bach, 1989). Identification occurs only to the extent that the organization is successful in persuading the employee to share its interests, values and decisional premises (Simon, 1957; Tompkins & Cheney, 1983). The organization is not always successful in embedding its goals and interests within its members.

Will identification be a workable proposition in the virtual office? When members are communicating primarily via computer media, there is reason to believe the organization will have difficulty competing as one of many potential targets of identification. Scott (1995) studied five organizational teams in their use of a computer group decision support system. He found that decisions made using the groupware were actually made with less consideration of the organization's interests than they would have been in a face to face context. Scott, drawing on Salancik (1977), also suggests that the anonymity of the group system may lead to less identification overall because of the lack of "publicness" which makes an activity more committing. Extending this to the virtual office, it is quite possible that the lack of shared physical space combined with the potential for deindividuation in online communication may lower the prospects for organizational identification.

Another system of nonbureaucratic control is posed by Alvesson (1992) who distinguishes between four forms of cultural-ideological modes of management control. While he has been criticized for claiming these forms are completely distinct from one another (Kersten, 1992; McPhee, 1992), viewing them as different facets of the same phenomenon permits a useful method for linking culture with control. The four facets of control are performance-related, perceptual, ideological and collective. Alvesson claims that each type is particularly likely to occur under specific conditions. The larger the presence of the factors, the more likely it is that management will exercise these methods of control. Several of the factors Alvesson discusses may apply specifically to the virtual office. For example, he argues that, "Fragmented labor processes and loosely coupled organizational structures tend to decrease the level of social integration" (p. 34), thus requiring a greater degree of collective control to bring people together and aim them toward unified goals. Additionally, an adhocratic character(due to continually changing projects and composition of work groups(may lead to higher uncertainty which in turn requires more strategies on managers' parts to counteract that uncertainty. The strategies employed in this case may be ideological and perceptual control. Accompanying the adhocratic character is a high degree of behavioral autonomy for which culture is the most appropriate means of control, since core values need to be strongly emphasized. Lastly, individuals' lack of overview contributes to the need for managerial control. When no one in the office is stationary, managers are in the best position to provide a sense of the overall organization.

Another potential source of tension in the virtual office is trust. Heckscher, Eisenstat & Rice (1994) note how difficult it is to create the level of trust needed to transform to the post-bureaucratic organization, especially when the effort must be on a large scale. A collaborative approach is fundamental to a successful transition since the change process should be parallel in nature to the new form. Handy (1995) proffers a number of principles of trust the virtual office will require including, paradoxically, more personal contact. The interactive model requires consensus about organizational values and aims which, according to Gordon (1994), "emerges from unconstrained dialogue among all organization members and is not promulgated from the top" (p. 195).

We turn now to Chiat/Day, an organization proclaiming virtuality, if perhaps only flirting with it in reality. It presents an opportunity to learn from the tensions between managerial control and growing virtual cultures among computer-linked workers.

Method

The following account is culled from three sources, the limitations of which are apparent. The first source is a pair of informal interviews with one organization member who has been with the company for nearly ten years. During our second visit, she gave me an extensive tour of the agency's Los Angeles facility, the first of their two offices to have made the virtual conversion.

Since then, I have toured at length the organization's web site (Chiat/Day, 1995) which contains a minimum of forty text pages of information about the organization including why the transition was made, the technology that makes it possible, articles written by senior organizational members, lists of individual members' community outreach efforts, and a virtual tour of their facilities which combines photos of the Los Angeles and New York offices.

The third source is a large number of newspaper and magazine articles written about the organization following its transformation (e.g., Illingworth, 1994; Patton, 1993; Sharkey, 1994).

The Organization

Chiat/Day3 has been called the enfant terrible of the advertising world. Founded in 1968, the agency had always featured unusual architecture at the behest of its co-founder, Jay Chiat, who believed in equal cubicles for all, from chairman to lowly copywriter. In the 1980s it was at the peak of its success, considered the cutting-edge agency of the day. It sought and received plentiful media attention and earned many highly desirable clients.

An oft-repeated Jay Chiat story relates how the idea for the virtual office was hatched. Jay was skiing in Telluride and thinking about how inefficient his office was. He realized that everything he really needed was stored in the computer, paper was basically obsolete, and that it would be relatively easy to make the transition into a virtual format. Chiat has had to fight implications that the entire rationale behind the change was financial; he argues instead that the virtual office is liberating and empowering. The management slogan "work is something you do, not a place to go" (Illingworth, 1994) is also frequently repeated in a seeming attempt to instill a belief in the value of virtuality. As Business Development Director Laurie Coots writes in her portion of the (1995) web site,

Senior management can't be everywhere, everyday to repeat the company vision to everyone, but we believe that if you've created an environment where people know what's expected of them, they will know what to do, they will be highly charged and creative, they will take risks(and magic will happen. We call this architectural management. (Chiat/Day, 1995)

Another accusation leveled at the agency is that the new flexible workplace is really just a way to milk more work hours out its employees. Competitors have long referred to the company as "Chiat/Day and Night" and with the new design, word is that what used to be confined to a regular schedule could now be extended consistently to all hours of the morning and evening beyond the typical work day. The organization doesn't try to hide this, as the web page states, "It's not likely that anyone will stop having ideas at 5:30 or will only have good ideas in the office" (Chiat/Day, 1995).

The agency began its transition with a pilot program but when the fully converted office opened in January of 1994, employees lined up outside the front door at 6:30 in the morning, afraid there wouldn't be enough space or equipment to meet everyone's needs. Within a few days, people began calming down and settling into the new routine. Ten temporary assistants were hired to roam the building answering questions and meetings were held every few days to give employees a chance to complain (Sharkey, 1994). Workers had to adjust to stopping at a concierge's desk to check out equipment for the day rather than heading straight for a permanently located desk, cubicle or office.

Walking into the Los Angeles office, any admirer of creative architecture cannot help being hugely impressed by the structure: two buildings, one resembling a ship, the other a tree, are hooked together by a three-story high pair of binoculars. To enter the parking garage of the Frank Gehry designed building, guests drive straight through the center of the binoculars. The architecture clamors for attention and the agency doesn't want anyone to miss the metaphor: Chiat/Day is visionary.

After taking the virtual tour on the web site, which includes photos of both the New York and L.A. offices mixed in together, the building falls somewhat short of expectations. In several respects, it looks like any other office. The cubicles are still there(they may be unassigned, but rows of them remain with computers and phones installed. Faded, stained carpet covers the floors, in place of the colorful and imaginative floor paintings featured in the New York office. The web site shows, for example, a giant arrow which guides visitors from the elevator to the reception desk. In New York, desks are free floating units which roll on wheels, to be electrically plugged in to different spots in the open office as needed.

In other ways, the L.A. office is still a treasure trove of visual delights, vastly different from what one would ordinarily expect to see in an office building. Inside the lens of the binoculars there is a small room where a gigantic light bulb hangs from the ceiling to inspire anyone who chooses to spend time below it thinking through problems. One of the conference rooms is called "the board room," not because it is a grandiose place where board members meet, but because the large desk is made out of several surfboards laminated together. The main floor has a clubhouse area with oversized tables and benches where people can either eat, relax, or plug in their laptop computers to use the area as a temporary workstation. The room has televisions and games to occupy those in a leisurely mode or to fulfill the needs of the artistic types who require plenty of noise to work at their creative best. One room resembles, and is known as, a doghouse with red, slanting wood planks for walls. Again, the New York office contains a similar structure, only that office's doghouse features a large painted dog on the floor in front of its entrance.

One of the important notions behind the virtual office is the increased ability to have people working in teams on particular projects. In the new Chiat/Day office, each account receives a dedicated conference room where its team, or strategic business unit, can gather all applicable ideas and information. Entering any one of these project rooms, the eyes are startled with a visual cacophony of artwork, color swatches, cartoons and papers scattered across the table and pinned up on the walls. It looks chaotic, but apparently the clients are somewhere between flattered and pleased to have the space dedicated to their campaigns. As Nohria and Berkley (1994) have remarked, sometimes companies with innovative structures put significant effort into extolling the virtues of their nonstructured arrangements of people and information. They "may even willfully give the impression of chaos to the first-time visitor" (p. 121). This "source of pride, a sort of corporate identity" (p. 121) is readily apparent at Chiat/Day, both in visiting their office and their home page.

The Chiat/Day web site is almost hyper-dramatic in its efforts to construct a rhetoric of creativity and innovation. The "Letter from Jay" is one of the best examples, as Chiat writes of how the new architecture "has empowered our people to control their work lives and perform more effectively." He closes his mini-polemic with, "We're now beginning to understand that what started as an idea on a Colorado ski slope less than two years ago will probably change the way corporate America does business" (Chiat/Day, 1995).

This straining toward constructing a dramatic reality is similar to the profile Alvesson (1994) writes about certain advertising agencies in Sweden. He recounts the emphasis placed on advertising people's special characteristics in order to sell their services. He stresses that the organization he studied could promote its own worth and irreplaceability by being purposefully anti-bureaucratic. In his depiction, the anti-bureaucrat is lawless, playful and associative; individualistic, eager to avoid control; has close social attachments to fellow workers; and represents fun. Alvesson found the advertising organization could promote itself by standing "for something radically and genuinely different from that of other companies" (p. 556). Alvesson also comments that advertising executives in Sweden are supposed to express their good taste through their personal appearance. Chiat/Day members fit the same requirement and the architecture functions as an extension of that principle, adding an additional allure which sets the agency apart from its competitors.

On the Virtual Superhighway, Do Employees Pay the Toll?

I first met Paula at a social gathering with no Chiat/Day connections. When I heard she worked for the agency, I prompted her with a few friendly questions and she chatted merrily about how much she liked her career and how interesting it was to have a before and after perspective on the virtual office. She enjoyed the flexibility of the new arrangement, getting to wander where she needed in the office or work at home when she preferred. Paula's job was ideal for her as she was an artist who was given the freedom to employ a variety of media. I asked if it would be possible to come by and visit the office sometime; she was very open and welcoming in response.

When I came to the office a couple of weeks later, it was as if a different person met me in the waiting room. The sunny personality I'd encountered a couple of weeks before was gone. Instead, Paula was tense and dispirited. She generously spent 45 minutes showing me around the building, pointing to some of the avant-garde art on the walls and the nicknamed areas, including the doghouse, drinking fountains, and concierge. During our tour, Paula spoke of how difficult it could be at times not to have a place of one's own where papers could be spread out and left until the next day. Although each employee has a personal locker, they are relatively far away from the work spaces so people seek out little hideaways of their own where they can secretly stash individual supplies.

Clearly I was visiting on a day that was particularly intense. The fact that I originally met Paula at a social event may entirely explain the change in her persona. It could also be that she goes through highs and lows, feeling differently at various times about the success of the virtual office and her own level of comfort with it.

An Unfolding Drama

Chiat/Day is in the process of recreating itself, but at this point is it fairly certain that this particular virtual office is not a truly post-bureaucratic organization. It does meet a number of the previously stated criteria, such as electronic files in place of material ones, increased emphasis on cmc in primary activities and informal face to face communication for maintaining cohesion, and a horizontal, coordination-intense structure. However, thus far there is no reason to believe it meets the elements that would truly lift it out of the realm of bureaucracy, since it leaves no impression of consensus building, open sharing of information about strategy (I don't know one way or the other, but it's difficult to imagine the average Chiat/Day employee knew about the company's recent merger before it was officially announced), and wider spans of influence based on persuasion rather than commands. Instead, I have the impression that these changes have very much occurred as a top-down process, heavily driven by management without much consultation of employees at other levels (except for those who were drafted into the pilot program; cf. Patton, 1993). Surely the tale being spun on the web pages and in other media would include a greater variety of organizational voices if the organization had a more participatory orientation.

Chiat/Day still seems bureaucratic in that supervisory control hardly seems to have evaporated in the wake of virtuality. The expectation of long hours and the extension of work into the home may mean that the iron grip of Weber's cage is widening far more than it is softening.

As skeptical as I am about some of the claims Chiat/Day is promulgating, I don't want to disparage the exciting strides it is making, especially without knowing more of the employees' thoughts about the virtual office. As organizations stumble towards their new forms, we who study them should do more than stand in the sidelines and carp when they fall short of our ideals. If we are to be useful, it will be in cheering them out of their doghouses and onto that painted arrow which points toward an enlightened future of organizing.

Future Directions

The virtual office presents a plethora of interesting issues for future research. A number of them center around new forms of control. How is control maintained when there is no direct supervision? Can concertive control function when organizational members are dispersed throughout a number of locations and working odd hours to suit their creative and work needs? If not, what mechanisms arise to provide coordination and some unity of goal direction? These questions assume that the virtual office is less controlled, in some ways, than traditional organizations. Another worthy line of investigation is whether instead the virtual office actually increases the opportunity for top management control via surveillance of online activities and higher time demands, extending into the organizational members' home lives.

These control issues foretell potential tension between owners or high level executives and employees. How do these groups symbolically construct meanings for the virtual office? Do they create rival understandings or compatible visions of their organization? A fantasy theme analysis (Bormann, 1972; 1983) might be very revealing in an organization such as Chiat/Day.

The problem of how organizational cultures may be developed in computer mediated communication extends beyond the scope of this discussion. However, the virtual office does present a particular case especially well suited to research questions in this area. When there are restricted opportunities for sharing stories by word of mouth or ritual Friday afternoon beer busts and no framed mission statements for employees to view daily, cultural symbols will most likely find alternate routes to provide meaning in people's work lives. Technology's role in facilitating group sensemaking is not yet well understood.

Given the opportunity for lowered overhead and more flexible use of employee time, it is likely that a substantial number of organizations will make the transition into virtual workplaces. This form presents a wide array of issues for scholars from all corners of the communication discipline to address. Examining the new structure will give us an education with applications beyond the virtual office into post-bureaucracies in general and should provide new insights into many facets of organizational life.

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Footnotes

1. This quote is taken from Jay Chiat's letter on the Chiat/Day (1995) web site.

2. Stanley A. Deetz made this comment during his oral presentation at the Top Three Paper panel of the Organizational Communication Interest Division of the 1995 annual meeting of the Speech Communication Association.

3. The organization's name has changed since its recent merger, to TBWA Chiat/Day.