Governança em Comunidades Virtuais de Negócios

This article aims to analyze the essential elements of governance in Virtual Business Communities (VBC), which represent a specific type of interorganizational relationship, based on technological dimensions that enable virtualization of interactions, digitization of business processes and access to information. Technological dimensions are critical to the construction and development of governance mechanisms ‐ structuring norms and rules, monitoring forms and application of incentives and sanctions. Among the fundamental elements, the institutional elements, the factors of trust, legitimacy and leadership are included, and they can promote or inhibit governance in VBC. The interaction of these elements with the technological dimensions has effects on the development of appropriate governance mechanisms of a VBC and has been little explored in the literature. A case study involving the creation of a VBC for the flower sector in Rio Grande do Sul, based on the conceptual elements analyzed, allowed us to propose a framework for VBC governance studies. It also enabled the development of guiding questions for the development of VBC governance for a particular type of business, based on interpretations given by the participants to the institutional factors and to the dynamics of virtuality of the interactions as they influence the construction of governance mechanisms.