Monsterous or educative: the hegemonic mythology of virtual organizations in global cyberspace

Abstract

This paper examines virtual organizations, operating in global cyberspace. This paper uses Armstrong’s (2005) conceptual orientation that mythmaking is fundamental to humanity and Warner's (1994) Neo-Barthesian (Barthes, 1957) methodology of distinguishing between “monster myths” which conceal political motives and secretly circulate ideological positions and her contrasting notion of “educative” myths which are not always delusions but are vigorous ways of leading one to "make sense of universal matters" (Warner, 1994, p. xiii) to recover the purposeful illusions behind the beguiling spells cast by the “modern myths” of virtual organizations. This paper finds that virtual organizations are impractical organizations involving a visible myth that masks the invisible purposes of the hegemonic (Torfing, 1999) control narratives of elites and global corporate capital.

Citation

Thorne, K. (2011), "Monsterous or educative: the hegemonic mythology of virtual organizations in global cyberspace", International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 236-257. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOTB-14-02-2011-B005