Roles of users in interactive networked collaborative environment

Role is very crucial in our daily life. People play different roles at different places and times. Their role can change from being staffs at the office, customers at shop, and parents at home. Moreover, people's role influences their motivation level, job satisfaction, peace of mind and security to resources or belongings. Role is vital in networked collaborative virtual environment (NCVE) as all the users are invisible. They do not see each other like in face to face situation. Thus, role representation must be clearly defined and set in order to enhance communication, coordination and cooperation which lead to the achievement of shared goals in the virtual space. This paper studies roles in five organizational structures within real world organizations. In addition, investigation of roles in various applications within virtual world is also carried out. The main focus of the study is to extract the core elements of roles with respect to their involvements and authorities. The findings show that there is no direct correlation between both parameters due to the uniqueness of such elements. We conclude that there are six generic roles available in any organization.