Virtual Reality for Business Solutions

Introduction

Virtual reality is an environment simulated by information technology. Virtual reality was initially defined as a computer-simulated physical space. Currently, the term virtual reality is also used to describe interaction in a computer-mediated social space. In organizations, virtual reality has been mostly used to create computer simulations of work tasks to facilitate training and remote work. The use of computer-mediated communication in organizations has allowed virtual social reality to begin to emerge in corporate settings (Jones, pp. 111-117). This paper discusses the virtual reality for business solutions in a concise and comprehensive way.

Virtual Reality for Business Solutions: A Discussion

Jaron Lanier coined the term virtual reality in the 1980s to refer to a computer-simulated space where people could interact with each other and with simulated objects. Throughout the 1990s, virtual reality was progressively broadened to include computermediated social interaction even in the absence of a simulated physical context. Virtual reality became a research topic for social science. Julian Dibbell's (pp. 78-88) account of a virtual rape in a text-based online social simulation showed how these text-based virtual social settings were true microsocieties. She showed that in these online societies, social phenomena have a level of complexity similar to that of offline social experience (Schultze and Orlikowski, pp. 45-77).

Sherry Turkle took the study of virtual social realities one step further by arguing that people's online experience shapes their offline identity. Online virtual social realities are spaces where people explore with aspects of their identity that are repressed in their everyday interaction. Virtual social realities also allow people to improvise ways of dealing with life changes that have a bearing on how they see themselves and that would entail a loss of face if carried out offline. Currently, authors such as Donna Haraway (pp. 89-99) see themselves and other human beings as cyborgs—nodes in a network of human and nonhuman agents. They see no distinction between offline and online experiences—virtual reality is as real as everyday offline life.

Management practice and research with and around virtual reality lag behind these developments. Virtual reality in organizations is still mostly a label for simulated physical environments. Organizations use this type of virtual reality for training and for remote work. Pilots train in flight simulators and soldiers train in virtual reality combat games. Medical doctors can use virtual representations of patients to perform surgical procedures at a distance, and people whose work involves ...