Modeling cognitive style patterns to explore individuals' capabilities for processing knowledge in virtual settings

Organizations continue building virtual working teams (Teleworkers) to become more dynamic as part of their strategic innovation with great benefits to individuals, business, and society. Geographically distributed organizations however have the big challenge of managing people's knowledge not only to keep operations running but also to promote innovation within the organization creating new knowledge. This study analyses how knowledge-based organizations working with decentralized staff may need considering cognitive styles (CS) and learning styles (LS) of individuals participating on their programs to effectively manage knowledge in virtual settings. The study aims at modeling patterns to identify abilities of individuals according to their cognitive and learning styles attempting to match affinities to work remotely and take part in virtual team work, and also to correctly determine the use of appropriate hypermedia tools to help overcoming lower performance and effectiveness, which may occur due to the lack face-to-face communication normally found in typical offices.