Instead, it is akin to a "virtual corporation," with more than 2,500 stock-owning partners in 47 countries.

Q. Sounds like you are creating a virtual corporation.

Ms. Watring credits her success in part to the big-company attributes that her business has adopted - despite its structure as a small "virtual" corporation.

A virtual corporation, then, is a business organization that can be many things to many people, quite apart from the rigid, hierarchical corporations of today.

The latest buzzword for this type of instant "rise and fall" organization is "virtual corporation."

Every country needs them and the virtual corporations they create, and smart countries are out prospecting for them.

What if you are a small business operating as a virtual corporation out of a home office?

Increasingly competitive advantage also requires the integration of external activities and technologies: for example in the form of alliances and the virtual corporation.

Outside Hollywood and Silicon Valley, the "virtual corporation" is virtually unknown.

This will probably also be true of the virtual corporations that do successfully form.