Socialization and Reputation in Virtual Corporate Spaces: Confirming Identity and Reproducing Practice

Transformative expectations of modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) often do not agree with the reality of their appropriation in context. To investigate the divergence between discourse and praxis of ICTs, I performed an ethnographic study in a large Dutch IT firm where I followed a change project that was aimed at improving the organization's learning capabilities through the concept of virtual community. The research findings illustrate how the virtual community created to serve as an experiential learning exercise is appropriated instead as an arena for the manufacturing and display of status and as a reassurance of belonging.