An Approach for Virtual Organisations’ Dissolution

Current research on virtual organisations focuses mainly on their formation and operation phases, devoting only little attention to the dissolution phase. These passages typically suggest that dissolution should occur when the organisation has fulfilled all its objectives or when it is no longer needed. This last definition is quite vague and hard to define, as the need for an organisation is not always easy to measure.

We believe that, besides fulfilment of objectives, more causes should be considered for the dissolution of a virtual organisation, since an organisation is not always capable of achieving its goals or continuing operations. Organisations can change during their operation, as might the environment in which they operate, and these changes may affect their performance to the point that they should not continue operating. In addition, the causes that could lead to dissolution could affect the formation of future organisations. Considering the correspondence between virtual organisations and real-life organisations, some portions of real-world commercial law related to dissolution can be applied to the virtual world.

In this paper we introduce the different causes that should be considered for virtual organisation dissolution, and a case study focused on one of these causes is presented as a way to emphasise the significance of the dissolution process.