The Soar group : a Virtual Organization

Examining a virtual organization, the Soar group established by a group in Carnegie Mellon University, Manju Ahuja and Kathleen Carley answered the question: “to what extent do virtual organizations resemble traditional organizations?”
Basically, they found that:
-There is evidence of both centralization and hierarchy in a virtual organization. However, this structural form emerged in the communication structure and was not equivalent to an authority structure based on status or tenure differences.
-They also found evidence that in this virtual organization, as in traditional organizations, the structure was matched to the task characteristics. However, unlike traditional organizations, this fit between communication structure and task improved the perception of performance but did not appear to improve objective performance.
Article's web page :
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol3/issue4/ahuja.html