Enacted virtual partnerships: Imbrications of representations of boundary artifacts and cloud services

Abstract

This paper examines the mechanics and the implications of remediated practices in the context of virtual cross-organizational collaboration. Our treatment of the issue is informed by a case study aiming to assess how imbrications of representations hosted by different social media enable or constrain peer co-engagement of members in a virtual partnership. To this effect, we draw upon theories of agency and artifacts to anchor the concept of imbrication of representations and then we describe a prototypical platform intended to facilitate distributed organizing in an organic farming virtual partnership. Key property of this platform is the improved capability for coordinated virtual work attained through the blending of computer-mediated boundary artifacts and generic cloud services.