InformationandOrganization14(2004)59–81 www.elsevier.com/locate/infoandorg Discursive articulations of presence in virtual organizing Niki Panteli à School of Management, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK Abstract In this paper, I explore how presence is articulated in a virtual team environment. The empirical data in this paper are taken from a series of emails that were exchanged for the duration of a virtual team project. The paper argues that even though presence was ident- ified as integral in conceptualising virtual teams, it has not previously been well articulated. Using the discourse analysis approach, the study succeeds in identifying three different articulations of presence in virtual organizing: present availability, absent unavailability and silenced availability. The paper concludes with the argument that these discursive articula- tions of presence are central to understanding virtual organizing and the theoretical and practical implications of this are discussed. # 2003ElsevierLtd.Allrightsreserved. Keywords: Discourse; Interactions; Presence; Silence; Virtual organizing 1. Introduction Virtual teams by their very nature imply the presence of a group of geographi- cally dispersed individuals who work on a joint project or common task and com- municate mainly electronically for the duration of a specific project (Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999; Lipnack & Stamps, 1997). In this sense, presence, that signifies the state of being ‘‘there’’, has been central to our understanding and conceptualisation of virtual team organizing. Despite this, the issue of presence has not been suffi- ciently explored nor well articulated in studies on virtuality and virtual teams in particular. In this paper, I draw on a study of a virtual team to advance under- standing on the discursive nature of presence in a virtual organizing context. The à Tel.: +44-1225-383319; fax: +44-1225-386473. E-mail address: mnsap@bath.ac.uk (N. Panteli). 1471-7727/$-seefrontmatter # 2003ElsevierLtd.Allrightsreserved. doi:10.1016/j.infoandorg.2003.10.001