How Are Blogs Used In Organizati Application On Behalf Of Social Learningal
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the theoretical link between blogs and organisational learning. It aims to provide a set of practical guidelines on how to overcome the challenges of implementing an organisational blog. Design/methodology/approach – A literature review will be used to examine blogs and their association towards organisational learning and an illustration of how one company reacted to using blogs will be provided. Findings – It was discovered that implementing blogs within organisations can present challenges that might be overcome through properly informing and educating staff about their organisational benefits. A set of guidelines is presented as an implementation checklist for companies considering using internal blogs. Research limitations/implications – The paper does not examine the adoption of blog use within multiple organisations but reflects on the challenges of running blogs in one specific organisation. The problems identified might not apply to all types of organisations. Further research will be required to determine this. Practical implications – The paper provides a set of guidelines that allows organisations to assess whether blogging is right for them and suggests steps to take that can stimulate an organisational blogging culture. Originality/value – The paper offers practical advice and guidelines that help management to overcome difficulties associated with the introducing of organisational blogs internally. The paper provides a novel academic perspective in which organisational blogs might not be as straightforward to implement as argued in the literature.
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The Learning Organization
Organisational blogs: benefits and challenges of implementation
Gavin J. Baxter Thomas M. Connolly Mark H. Stansfield
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Gavin J. Baxter Thomas M. Connolly Mark H. Stansfield, (2010),"Organisational blogs: benefits and
challenges of implementation", The Learning Organization, Vol. 17 Iss 6 pp. 515 - 528
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Organisational blogs: benefits and
challenges of implementation
Gavin J. Baxter, Thomas M. Connolly and Mark H. Stansfield
School of Computing, University of the West of Scotland,
Paisley, UK
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the theoretical link between blogs and organisational
learning.It aims to provide a set of practicalguidelines on how to overcome the challenges of implementing
an organisational blog.
Design/methodology/approach – A literature review will be used to examine blogs and their
association towards organisational learning and an illustration of how one company reacted to using
blogs will be provided.
Findings – It was discovered that implementing blogs within organisations can present challenges
that might be overcome through properly informing and educating staff about their organisational
benefits. A set of guidelines is presented as an implementation checklist for companies considering
using internal blogs.
Research limitations/implications – The paper does not examine the adoption of blog use within
multiple organisations but reflects on the challenges of running blogs in one specific organisation. The
problems identified might not apply to all types of organisations. Further research will be required to
determine this.
Practical implications – The paper provides a set of guidelines that allows organisations to assess
whether blogging is right for them and suggests steps to take that can stimulate an organisational
blogging culture.
Originality/value – The paper offers practical advice and guidelines that help management to
overcome difficulties associated with the introducing of organisational blogs internally. The paper
provides a novel academic perspective in which organisational blogs might not be as straightforward
to implement as argued in the literature.
Keywords Communication technologies, Corporate communications, Employee communications,
Learning organizations
Paper type Case study
1. Introduction
Web 2.0 is a term associated with "[... ] the social use of the Web which allow[s] people
to collaborate, to get actively involved in creating content, to generate knowledge and
to share information online" (Grosseck, 2009, p. 478). In industry, the potential of using
Web 2.0 technologies appears to be being gradually realised though adoption
is surprisingly still in a rudimentary stage (Du and Wagner, 2006). Factors such as
employee expectations about using innovative communication channels at work,
finding ways of enhancing organisational sustainability and internal development
through knowledge sharing are some issues determining organisational adoption of
Web 2.0 technologies.
To achieve organisational evolvement through the use of information communication
technology (ICT), organisations must concentrate on the learning aspects of ICT.
The social nature of organisations (Brown and Duguid, 1991) makes the use of Web 2.0
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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Organisational
blogs
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The Learning Organization
Vol. 17 No. 6, 2010
pp. 515-528
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0969-6474
DOI 10.1108/09696471011082376
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a beneficial approach towards facilitating organisational learning. The collaborative way
in which individuals interact in organisations through team and project work is a good
example of this assertion on "social phenomena."
We examine both the implementation and application of one specific type of Web
2.0 technology in organisational contexts, namely blogs. There are two particular
objectives to this paper. First, the theoretical link between organisational learning and
blogs is identified. This is illustrated through the example of the running of software
projects. Second, based on an exploratory case study undertaken by the authors,
guidelines are produced on how to overcome initial challenges of implementing blogs in
an organisational environment. In doing so, we provide a practical perspective
to organisational management on the problems that may initially arise when using blogs
in an organisation. Though these guidelines will be based on the experience of
implementing blogs in an ICT division of one organisation, it is our aim to produce
guiding principles generic enough to be applied in other industry sectors.
The remainder of this paper is organised as follows. Previous research undertaken in
relation to organisational blogs is examined. Following on from this, the concept of
organisational learning and its association with Web 2.0 is discussed. Next, the popular
Web 2.0 technology of blogs is introduced and its applicability to organisations is
explored through the case of software projects. After this, a case study is presented that
currently involves the authors working with an organisation to implement the use of
blogs for organisational learning. Finally, a set of blog implementation guidelines are
proposed and conclusions and future directions are provided.
2. Previous research
It has been asserted that "[... ] genuine empirical research on blogs is limited" (Hall and
Davison, 2007, p. 169). The greatest concentration of primary research on blog use
appears to be within higher educational contexts (Farmer et al. , 2008). However, there
appears to be a gradual increase in empirical research regarding the use of blogs within
organisations. There have already been studies undertaken about the use of internal
blogs within organisations. The subject matter or "themes" of investigation include
ascertaining the reasons as to why individuals engage with corporate blogging
(Jackson et al. , 2007), examining the use of blogs within small-to-medium
enterprises (SMEs) and exploring how blogs are used in particular organisational
settings (Efimova and Grudin, 2007). Our research differentiates from prior studies
towards organisational blog use because we concentrate on the theory of
organisational learning towards blogs whilst examining the impact of internal blog
use within an organisation that has never used them before.
2.1 What is organisational learning?
Three of the main perceptions of organisational learning relate to what are known as: the
functionalistic perspective, the interpretive perspective and the concept of
organisational memory. The functionalistic outlook of organisational learning states
that though learning is directed by the organisation it begins with the individuals who
inhabit organisations. Essentially, the functionalistic stance argues that "Individuals
learn as agents for the organization" (Ortenblad, 2002, p. 90). The functionalistic
perspective of organisational learning is sometimes referred to as "old organisational
learning" (Turner, cited in Gherardi, 1999, p. 108). The interpretive perspective is the
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other main theoretical position of organisational learning. This has also been referred
to as "new organizational learning" (Turner, cited in Gherardi, 1999, p. 108). In this
particular viewpoint, learning in organisations is predominately relationship based and
begins in the form of relationships and through social interaction. The classification of
knowledge and the concept of how it is stored in an organisation have strong
associations towards the organisational learning theory of "organisational memory."
Contained within this specific thinking, organisations possess "[... ] cognitive systems
and memories" (Hedberg, 1981, p. 6). The knowledge that individuals acquire on behalf
of the organisation is stored in the organisation's memory for retrieval and use by
organisational members who require it.
This paper conforms to the interpretive outlook of organisational learning. This
outlook is based upon the view that organisations are inherently social and collaborative
in nature, individuals can act and think for themselves and most organisations are
unique in the way in which they operate. In terms of an accepted definition of
organisational learning, we agree with the view that organisational learning is the "[... ]
activity or processes (of learning) in organizations [... ]" (Ortenblad, 2001, p. 9). In a later
section, we will examine how blogs can sustain learning processes in organisations in
keeping with the interpretive perspective of organisational learning.
2.2 Organisational learning and Web 2.0
The characteristics of Web 2.0 are applicable towards the interpretive perspective of
organisational learning. The usage of Web 2.0 is designed to facilitate "[ ... ] interaction,
community and openness" (Millard and Ross, 2006, p. 27) which is what the
interpretive stance of organisational learning is preoccupied with. According to
Wenger (1991), learning in organisations can be perceived as a social phenomenon due
to the instinctive interactive nature of the individuals within them. Collective learning
in organisations is often referred to as communities of practice (Wenger and Snyder,
2000). Communities of practice involve individuals with a common interest coming
together on an ad hoc basis to work on and resolve a particular problem (Wenger,
1991). Communities of practice in organisational contexts often relate to group or
project work. It is the social practices of people collectively working together in
organisations that allows the interpretivist organisational learning concepts of
dialogue (Schein, 1993), shared knowledge and experiences (Baitsch, 1993-1996 cited in
Schultz, 2008, p. 458) and collective reflection (Hoyrup, 2004) to flourish. It would
appear that the social concepts of Web 2.0 can facilitate the social perspective of
organisational learning to occur as it promotes the same social values.
In the writings related to the social perspective of organisational learning,
organisations have been referred to as "social learning systems" (Wenger, 2000, p. 226).
In the context of Web 2.0 technology use social learning in organisations can be achieved
depending on the type of technology used and its purpose. One specific Web 2.0
technology we discuss is blogs. In a later section of this paper, the association between
blogs and organisational learning will be examined in the context of software project
environments.
2.3 Blogs
It has been generally regarded that the term "weblog" was created by Jorn Barger in
1997 arising from the amalgamation of two words "web" and "log" (Kaiser et al. , 2007).
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Though numerous definitions of weblogs or blogs exist within the academic literature,
blogs can be described as being "frequently modified web pages in which dated entries
are listed in reverse chronological sequence" (Herring et al. , 2004, p. 1). The entries that
are inserted into blogs by blog users can also be made up of not only text but also
graphics, sound and video.
2.3.1 Characteristics of blogs. The fact that blogs are generally about producing
content means that they are often associated with the notions of dialogue and
information sharing. It is the "conversational nature" (Lee et al. , 2008, p. 135) of blogs
that makes them appealing for individual's to exchange views and opinions about issues
of mutual interest. Blogs also promote the notion of "thinking by writing" (Nardi et al.,
2004, p. 45) allowing bloggers inserting blog posts to reflect on personal experience
or actions thereby sharing this tacit knowledge with fellow readers. Blogs are
also sometimes known as content management systems (Ras et al. , 2005, p. 396) as
information in a blog is stored chronologically by date often in themed categories.
Though blogs can be private as well as public, they often promote a sense of community
as they can be created for specific purposes for sharing information in projects and other
communal activities. The salient characteristics of blogs are shown in Figure 1.
2.3.2 Blog use within organisations. It has been argued that "[... ] social computing
technologies [... ]" have still to encounter "[... ] widespread use in organizations" (Ip and
Wagner, 2008, p. 7). However, some organisations such as International Business
Machines and Microsoft have been quick to realise the benefits of using blogs (Du and
Wagner, 2006). Research into the organisational uses of blogs is growing with several
types of organisational blog being identified by use: employee blogs; group blogs;
executive blogs; promotional blogs and newsletter blogs (Lee et al. , 2008). Employee
blogs are often associated with staff members' blogging externally on the behalf of
their company so as to maintain a favourable image for the company. Group blogs are
mostly used for project-related purposes of both an internal and external nature.
Executive or CEO blogs are run by company executives to put forward company ideas
and engage with members of the public through feedback (Evans et al. , 2008). CEO
blogs can also be used internally in organisations to communicate company initiatives
with staff. Promotional blogs are used specifically for advertising products whilst
newsletter blogs deal with issues relating to company information.
2.3.3 Blogs and organisational learning: case of software projects. The way in which
software projects are undertaken in industry means that they are naturally associated
Figure 1.
Key elements of blogs
Information
sharing
Management of
content
Reflective
dialogue
Community-
driven
Blog
characteristics
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with the interpretive aspect of organisational learning. Most software projects rely on
the key attribute of communication if they are to succeed. Communication, along with
the concept of sharing knowledge among project members, is important in allowing
a project to develop. The creation of a dedicated project blog would provide an
alternative way of allowing project members to informally communicate about their
project roles, objectives and initial project thoughts. The use of a project blog in this
way would be particularly beneficial if the project team was geographically
distributed. The usefulness of blogs as information sharing tools has already been
addressed in the academic literature (Kosonen et al. , 2007) as has their potential to
encourage "[... ] passionate conversations on knowledge intensive practices"
(Kaiser et al. , 2007, p. 406). The notion of exchanging personal or tacit knowledge
among individuals in an organisation is in keeping with the organisational learning
concepts of the "knowledge creating company" (Nonaka, 1991, p. 104).
The successful managing of a software project is often seen as a precondition
towards the project objectives being met within the specified timescales. A centralised
project blog can allow project managers to frequently update their project teams on a
regular basis on a project's overall status. Encouraging openness and information
sharing through the use of a project blog can help to alleviate the problems of failing to
report bad news within a project's development. Open communication throughout the
use of a blog for software projects would help to alleviate the problem of team members
withholding privately held information throughout the development process. Blogs
can assist in facilitating collaboration that leads to an increase in communication and
cooperation (Lee and Trimi, 2008). When viewed from this perspective, the concept of
transparency that blogs are related to appears to be associated with knowledge being
shared within a social network cultivated through shared practice and traditions.
Often associated with the role of project management in software projects are the
important tasks of undertaking project reviews, debriefings and producing project
documentation. Blogs have been strongly associated with the concept of knowledge
management. The recording and storage of knowledge and learning in a project-based
blog has a close theoretical connection with the organisational learning concept of
organisational memory. According to Walsh and Ungson (1991, p. 61), organisational
memory can be considered as "[... ] stored information from an organization's history
that can be brought to bear on present decisions." A project blog can be used to store
information regarding the outcome of project reviews and debriefings allowing
company members to refer to prior project thinking that may impact on future projects.
Closely related to the concept of "organisational memory" is the argument that
organisations can learn from past experiences (Levitt and March, 1988).
3. Research study: blog use in ICT division
In this section of the paper, we outline a case study currently being undertaken by the
authors about the use of blogs in an ICT division of a large public sector financial
organisation. The focus of this research is unique because it involves an organisation
that has no prior experience of using blogs. This study will be of benefit to managerial
practitioners wishing to introduce blogs into their organisation especially if they are
unsure of how to do so. The research examines the attitudes of both employees and
company towards using blogs in the context of an organisation never exposed to blog
use before. The authors will be able to analyse employee and organisational views
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contrasting them with the academic literature to ascertain if the data gathered
correlates with the findings of previous studies. The research has provided initial
interesting observations about the measures the company has taken to promote the use
of the blogs.
3.1 Research objectives
The boundary of the research involves the concept of projects, practice area teams as
well as individual and shared learning as the central "units of analysis" (Yin, 2009, p. 33)
within the organisation's ICT division. Though a central theme of examination will
concentrate on evaluating the company's "uptake" of blogging and reaction towards it,
an important area of investigation is whether internal project blogs can facilitate the
concept of organisational learning. This avenue of research is in response to the problem
area of "troubled" software projects (Keil and Robey, 2001) with the focus being that the
use of internal project blogs could produce organisational learning to alleviate this
acknowledged problem. At the time of writing and to the authors' best knowledge, the
study of these interrelated concepts has yet to be analysed at an empirical level.
3.1.1 Adopted research approaches. The central research method adopted for this
study is the single-case study approach. Although case study research is limited by the
inability to make generalisations, there are several reasons why a case study was
chosen. Rather than conduct the research in a whole range of small companies,
the research has been designed to implement blogs in a large company that has not
used them before. This is also to be a deep study so as to be more focused than other
blog-related studies that appear to be more wide ranging. Focusing upon an individual
company that had not used blogs before will allow the authors to propose a framework
to make blogging successful in organisational contexts for other companies to try and
other researchers to implement.
In keeping with the social nature of the research, the methodology of action research
has been employed. Action research is where "[... ] the researcher enters a real-world
situation and aims to improve it and to acquire knowledge" (Checkland and Holwell,
1998, p. 9). The authors chose the methodology of action research due to its participative
and collaborative nature because this allowed the authors to work closely with the
organisation at the initial stages of the research. Through using action research,
the authors are aware that the research findings will be "[... ] contingent on the situation
being studied" and unlikely to "[... ] result in universally applicable generalisations"
(Warmington, 1980, p. 25) though the case study approach justifies this acknowledged
limitation.
3.1.2 Work undertaken so far. The early phases of the research commenced with the
authors presenting their "statement of research" to the company primarily to highlight
the benefits of the research to the company and gain their overall commitment.
At regular intervals, the authors were able to work with key company personnel
involved in implementing the blogs guiding them on how best to facilitate the pilot
study. The company's main concern prior to creating and using the blogs was that of
security. Rather than use existing externally hosted blog software, they preferred to
develop their own internal blog based on Lotus Notes. The authors had to ensure that
they would be granted access to the practice area blogs to analyse the blog entries once
the pilot study had commenced. The authors advised the company on the design of the
blog template to ensure it would meet the necessary requirements of blog functionality.
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Demonstrations of the blog were provided by the company's technical analyst allowing
the authors to assess whether the functionality of the blog met the key characteristics
of blogs.
The authors were asked to devise blog guidelines as well as moderator guidelines for
the company. The purpose of the guidelines was to provide a flexible outline of advice on
how to blog effectively and use the blogs as a collaborative, community-related
communication medium. However, the company decided not to use the moderator
guidelines in case employees would not post on their respective blogs for fear of being
monitored. The blog guidelines were made available to members of the practice area
teams on the company's intranet. Prior to commencing the pilot study, the authors
distributed a pre-test questionnaire the results of which are undergoing analysis. The
aim of the questionnaire is to ascertain initial employee thoughts about blogging and
then to compare these views with the post-test questionnaire. As opposed to running
educational sessions about blog use for the employees involved in the pilot study,
the company wished to broadcast a "blog bulletin statement" directed through the
management of each practice area. In doing so, it was felt by the company that the
objectives of the pilot study would be better communicated through each practice area's
manager. One of the main difficulties that the authors encountered at the beginning of
this study was the timescales from getting company "buy-in" to getting the blogs up and
running. Once the blog template had been designed, it took over six months to get the
blogs "rolled out" to the respective practice areas and it should be noted was for an
organisation that had commitment at director level.
3.1.3 Initial results and findings. The ICT practice area blogs have now been
running for a period of five months during which that time the authors have been able
to analyse interesting patterns of blog usage. Our initial observations of the uses and
content of the blogs have drawn early conclusions that each practice area has adapted
their blog for specific purposes. The blogs used by the programmers and the database
development team appear to be for sharing code to assist them in their project work.
The following post from one of the Java Developer team members reaffirms this
observation: "Since, one of the stated aims of the blog is announcing new useful shared
code. I propose shared code as a category."
Though information sharing is a central element of organisational learning and blog
use, there is currently no evidence in the blog of postings stating learning has occurred
by team members within and during their projects. It has also been observed that
during busy periods of project work, the blogs are used less frequently and only
updated afterwards. It has also been acknowledged by team members of these practice
areas that the blogs are often used for the sole purposes of a reference tool. The
business systems and systems testing team blogs have resulted in fewer postings so
far. There also appears to be a lack of awareness of the differences between a blog and
a forum as one entry on the business systems analysts (BSA) blog states: "Howdy
BSA's [... ] Thanks for the chance to come along to the BSA forum and tout the idea of
using blogs within the practice. As promised a quick how to on getting started with the
blog."
The feedback obtained from staff about the use of the blogs has revealed that some
members of staff are unsure of how to blog and are still unfamiliar with how the blog
should be used. Many of these staff are also uncertain of what to blog about. A lack of
blog moderation or management continuing to be fully behind encouraging the use
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of the blogs could be attributed towards them developing an uncertain attitude
towards organisational blogging.
The company has also created a blog for its organisational development and learning
(OD&L) team. This blog has been adapted for internal communication about team
updates, meetings, training courses attended and general feedback. The posts in this
blog indicate a lack of understanding as to how blogging in organisational contexts
should be used. Examples of postings include: "Friday again, doesn't time fly when
you're enjoying yourself? Who's only working on Monday next week???? (oops it's me
???). Hope you have a fabby weekend." Posts such as this appear to confirm that though
the OD&L team has been shown how to blog by their manager the department is
unfamiliar with the concept of organisational learning and its application to blogging.
This observation is more notable due to the department's remit being concerned with
aspects such as organisational development and e-learning. The blog's purpose appears
to have been defined and used as a morale boosting internal communication channel.
Despite this fact, the OD&L division of the company perceives their ways of using their
blog to be successful and as a result the blog is being expanded to the whole of the
HR directorate. This is encouraging from the point of view of the research as it denotes
an element of organisational change.
It would appear that the blogs are not being used as described in the academic
literature. Early assumptions suggest that there may have been a case of
miscommunication from senior management about the purpose of piloting the blogs.
To move the research forward, the authors and company have jointly agreed to run a
series of educational sessions about blog use specific to the company. A series of focus
groups will be held per practice area to inform the staff about blog use within
organisations. Focus groups have been chosen because they have strong connotations
with qualitative research and are useful for gaining a sense of people's views,
experiences and perspectives on a certain topic (Freeman, 2006). In conjunction with
the focus groups, a series of individual interviews will be conducted with selected
individuals per practice area to gain an in-depth understanding of their experiences of
using the blogs.
4. Blog implementation guidelines
As a result of their direct experience of the research undertaken so far, the authors have
proposed a set of practical guidelines for management who may be contemplating
using blogs in their organisation but who are unsure of how to successfully implement
them. These guidelines can also be referred to by academic practitioners who may be
interested in conducting their own study of blog use within an organisation. These
guidelines are generic in the sense that they can be applied to most industry sectors
and are more specific to large-scale organisations or SMEs. The guidelines are shown
in Figure 2 and described in more depth in this section:
.Decide on blog boundaries. Prior to introducing any pilot study of a blog into an
organisation, it is important to decide on the boundaries of where the blog(s) will
be used and by which departments (Blair and Cranston, 2006). Consider which
departments would be willing to trial the use of an internal blog. A department
that is more likely to "buy in" to the idea of blogging will provide a greater
amount of feedback on how successful the pilot study has been. The results of the
initial blog use can then be used to inform other staff about the uses of blogging
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in the organisation based on the firsthand experiences of those who have already
engaged in blog use.
.Choose your blogging software. When choosing what type of blogging software
to use for your company, it is important to think of security concerns if your blog
is going to be externally hosted or created through open-source software (Du and
Wagner, 2006). This is a relevant consideration to reflect upon especially if there
will be company sensitive information posted on the blog. If your blog is to be
internally hosted then it might be worthwhile to develop the blog based upon
current legacy software. Aspects such as blog functionality as well as cost and
time to develop the blog should also be taken into account. These are important
considerations that apply to the introduction of any new technology venture
(McKelvie et al. , 2007).
.Agree on timescales. It is important to agree upon a set of timescales that will allow
for the early prototype of the blog template to be customised, sufficiently tested
and adequate documentation to be produced to support the initial pilot scheme.
If your company is busy at specific times of the year then it is best to concentrate
on the gradual introduction of blogging when your organisation is less busy
(Blair and Cranston, 2006). Maintaining a record of how the implementation
process was undertaken would be useful for future reference where your company
to introduce any other types of social software.
Figure 2.
Blog implementation cycle
Blog implementation
guidelines
4. Implementation
Promote blog
benefits to
staff
3. Development
2. Support
1. Planning
Seek staff
opinion and
feedback
Monitor
success
of blog
Choose
blogging
software
Create blog
guidelines
Define
purpose
of blog
Decide on
blog
boundaries Agree on
timescales
Importance of
management
support
Assigning
product
champion
Backing
of staff
crucial
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.Importance of management support. Ensure management realise the strategic
importance of running the blog. If management or more senior members of the
organisation are not supportive of the initiative then it will most likely be
unsuccessful. It is important to address the issues of what the company can get
out of using blogs so that management will be supportive of their uptake.
Management must see the relevance of using the blogs with regards to the
impact they will have on their team areas. It is imperative that once the blogs are
up and running that management remain committed to the overseeing of their
team blogs and take a lead role in encouraging their members of staff to use it.
This could be achieved by management posting "themed" questions at regular
intervals to find out how their staff are enjoying using the blog or simply by
posting work-related topics for open discussion.
.Assign a product champion. As well as management buy-in, it is useful to have a
product champion. This might be someone in management though it does not
have to be. It is always beneficial to have someone pushing the cause (i.e. in this
case a blogging initiative). If your organisation has a product champion, this will
help to support the introduction of new technology.
.Backing of staff crucial. If a blogging venture is to be successful within an
organisation, then it must also have support from the grassroots level of the
company. The staff members who will be involved in using the blogs must be
fully behind the idea otherwise they will be reluctant to blog. Some members of
staff may already be sufficiently content with their ways of working and
communicating internally. It is essential that staff realise that the blogs being
introduced into the organisation are there to complement their existing channels
of communication and not to replace them.
.Promote blog benefits to staff. The way in which the blog initiative is
communicated and sold to staff is important (Gordon and Stephens, 2006). Staff
must be informed as to why the use of blogs is being introduced into their
organisation as well as how they will impact on their ways of working. This could
be achieved by sending bulletin statements to staff informing them of the benefits
of using blogs as a form of communication and learning in their company.
This would invite feedback from staff and keep them involved in the blogging
pilot. It is vital that staff understand why the blogs have been introduced into their
organisation otherwise a lack of general understanding about using blogs for
work will mean that there will be uncertainty on how to use them.
.Seek staff opinion and feedback. It is important to gauge the thoughts and views
of the staff who will be using the blogs. Maintaining a level of transparency from
"senior management down" when introducing a pilot study of organisational
blog use will help to allay any concerns that employees might have in using one.
A good way to measure staff opinion is to run a short pre-test questionnaire. If
the implementation and running of blogs is to be successful then staff opinions
must be considered as they will be the main users of the blogs. A post-test
questionnaire can be used to assess if staff opinion has changed in any way as
a result of using the blogs over the duration of the pilot study. Gauging employee
views in this way will allow management to evaluate the success of how the
blogs have been used providing them with feedback to make an informed
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decision on whether to continue with the implementation of the blogs or whether
the current blogging process needs to be adapted.
.Create guidelines on blog use. Devise a set of guidelines for using the blogs (Blair
and Cranston, 2006). This will help staff to be aware about what is deemed
appropriate in terms of "blogging etiquette" as well as providing them with a sense
of guidance on things they should be thinking about whilst blogging. Though
there is no universally accepted format for devising company blog guidelines
general topics might encompass: what is deemed acceptable to publish, providing
rich content, maintaining consistency of postings, en couraging feedback, showing
respect to your colleagues and addressing the notion of "thinking before writing."
In addition, if multiple departments are using the blogs then employees can
become involved in establishing guidelines specific to their department. This
provides a sense of ownership to each team's blog.
.Define the purpose of your blog. Before using an internal company blog, it is
crucial to define what the purpose of the blog or blogs will be (Gordon and
Stephens, 2006). This will assist staff when it comes to posting on the blog as
they will be aware of the types of topics to publish. If the overall aim and use of a
company blog is not specified from the outset then problems will arise with
members of staff being unsure of the reasons for its use. An internal company
blog will have different aims as opposed to an internal blog created for use by a
specific department. The use of a departmental blog could be tailored to assist
aspects of communication and learning deemed relevant to that department. The
internal company blog might be used to assist in the overall process of
communication and learning of the organisation as a whole.
.Education of staff. During the pilot study of implementing an organisational
blog, some staff might show a lack of understanding as to how blogging should
be used. Staff may also encounter problems in being unable to differentiate
between writing informally in a company blog as opposed to writing in an e-mail
or social networking site. This can be overcome by educating staff through a
series of information sessions run either by the blog champion or an
organisation's learning and training division (Gordon and Stephens, 2006). These
sessions should be flexible to accommodate the views of staff allowing them to
suggest topics relevant to them in the information sessions. Topics that could be
covered in an information session include: the use of social software on
organisations, history and background of blogs, blog use within organisations,
staff opinions and attitudes to blogging and a session on how to blog.
.Monitor success of your blog. When having introduced blogging into your
organisation, it is important to measure the success of your blogging initiative
through a pre-defined set of evaluation criteria (Blair and Cranston, 2006). The
criteria by which you will assess the impact of blog use will depend on the purpose
of their introduction. If one of the primary reasons for introducing blogs into your
organisation was to promote and facilitate learning among departments or project
teams then evidence of learning will have to be identified before it can be
measured. When coming to examine or evaluate blog use within your
organisation, it will be worthwhile to consider whether the focus of the blog has
changed in any way. Reflecting on how beneficial the blogging venture has been
Organisational
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for both staff and the organisation itself will allow an informed choice to be made
as to whether this communication channel will continue to be used.
5. Conclusion
This paper has examined the concept of blogs and their uses within organisations
particularly within software project environments. The objective of this study was to
investigate the learning potential blogs can provide employees and organisations;
however, the findings of the research to date do not show any form of learning having
occurred, although it is possible that this will change in the next phase of the study.
Organisations wishing to implement any type of new technology should consider why it is
being introduced into their organisation. This helps to keep the initiative focused and
assist in its successful adoption throughout the organisation. The authors maintain that
though this paper has concentrated on the Web 2.0 technology of blogs, organisational
learning can also be facilitated through other types of Web 2.0 technologies such as wikis.
The theoretical part of this paper will be of use to both academics and practitioners as it
links the theory of blogs towards actual practice in the context of project environments.
In the case of management practitioners, this paper provides a useful insight into how
blogs can foster organisational learning through one particular infrastructural
communications channel resulting in an organisation that learns.
The blog implementation guidelines that have been proposed in this paper are by no
means exhaustive but have been based on the authors' direct experience of their case
study research and have been designed to provide guidance to other organisations that
might consider implementing a particular type of Web 2.0 technology but who may be
unsure of what factors to think about before doing so. In the second phase of the research,
the authors will conduct focus groups and individual in-depth interviews with staff to
ascertain opinions and experiences of organisational blogging. Information sessions
with the company's organisational development team will be run covering
organisational learning and Web 2.0. These interventions will help to inform
academic and practitioner communities if these approaches have been successful in
aiding the blogging initiative.
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Bausch, P., Haughey, M. and Hourihan, M. (2002), We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs,
Wiley, New York, NY (Ch. 8).
Corresponding author
Gavin J. Baxter can be contacted at: gavin.baxter@uws.ac.uk
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... The role of management tools in supporting organizations working has been widely recognized in the management literature [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Many studies have emphasized the role of single management tools [3,[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15], as well as groups of management tools, for supporting organizational working in various circumstances [16][17][18][19]. ...
... To sum up, we are focusing on the following management tools, which aim to support the work of organizations under Industry 4.0 conditions, namely, (1) lean principles, (2) six sigma, (3) rapid prototyping, (4) radio-frequency identification, (5) shared service centers, (6) total quality management, (7) outsourcing, (8) supply chain management, (9) customer relationship management, (10) knowledge management, (11) core competencies, and (12) strategic planning. ...
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The main purpose of this study was to examine how personal and organizational drivers influence the utilization of management tools aimed at supporting organizational working in Industry 4.0 settings. We built our research upon the recognized importance of management tools for organizational working under Industry 4.0 settings and explored the key personal and organizational drivers of management tool usage. Calculations were performed based on the responses of 222 employees working in organizations across Europe. The results revealed that, among personal drivers, a higher level of education leads to significantly higher usage of six sigma, rapid prototyping, outsourcing, customer relationship management, knowledge management, core competencies, and strategic planning. More experienced employees use significantly more six sigma, total quality management, supply chain management, knowledge management, and core competences than their less experienced peers. The impact of organizational drivers is substantially weaker, where only industry shows significant influence, indicating that lean production, six sigma, and supply chain management are used more in manufacturing than in service organizations. Gender, one's position in the organization, and the organization size do not play a substantial role in management tool usage. Managers should recognize the role of personal and organizational drivers of management tool usage in order to more quickly implement Industry 4.0 principles in organizations.
... This study explores social media success on advocating for charity among many nonprofit organizations in a community (Whitaker, 2014). According to Baxter, Connolly and Stansfield (2010), to have a successful implementation to social media adoption, it is important to ensure a clear understanding to your objectives of using these applications. ...
- Mohammed Honinah
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Social media use is rapidly increasing as its platforms keep offering excellent opportunities for individuals and organizations, including NGOs, to develop better outreach with communities, donors and stakeholders, save costs and improve service. This study explores quantitative evidence derived from a survey involving 96 participants from 11 local NGOs in Yemen. The survey responses are analyzed using descriptive statistics that includes means and standard deviations to examine the initially identified 6 Technology-Organization-Environment factors (Technological Factors: perceived benefit, compatibility, complexity; Organizational Factor: top management support; Environmental Factors: bandwagon pressure and competitive pressure). The results suggest that the factors (perceived benefit, compatibility, complexity, top management support, and competitive pressure) are important for social media adoption. It was found that bandwagon pressure is the only factor that does not have a significant role in social media adoption. This study provides a foundation for future social media adoption research as well as useful guidance to NGOs that desire to use social media effectively to benefit their organizations. The findings can be useful to managers and communication officers of NGOs. In this study, it is recommended that understanding the factors related to adoption of social media by Local NGOs will help decision-makers be in a better position to enhance future social media adoption and adoption strategies and accomplish the best outcomes of social media utilizations.
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Agriculture plays an important in providing food security and sustainability for the people in any country. However, lack of funding and limited distribution channels to reach customers are frequent problems faced by farmers to meet the level of sustainability. Agriculture's sustainability can be strengthened by allowing an innovation of services such as Financial Technology (FinTech), and digital marketplace. Digital marketplace with Fintech enabled might transform agriculture's business process into more sustainable in term of funding and distribution. FinTech offers farmers convenient ways of getting sources of funding through crowdfunding and digital payment system. Thus, digital marketplace can act as a platform for FinTech to integrate the innovative financial solution into broader agriculture's ecosystem. The study proposes a modelling digital marketplace with FinTech enabled especially crowdfunding and payment system in order to support agriculture's sustainability. The model connects all actors (farmers, landowners, investors, and consumers) into a platform that can promote transparency, empowerment, resourcefulness, and public engagement in agriculture.
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This research-in-progress aims to address the complex phenomenon of knowledge sharing within the context of social media. The objective of this paper is to examine how the affordances of social media impact knowledge sharing dynamics in intra-organizational Information Technology (IT) projects. This paper adopts Design Science Research (DSR) as research paradigm and the Technical Action Research (TAR) as validation method. One social media artifact will be designed and investigated within the context of an IT project. The expected contributions of this work will be twofold: (1) The results of this research should add to the literature on empirically tested theory of social media affordances on knowledge sharing dynamics in IT projects; (2) The instantiation of the TAR study will characterize a contribution of the type 'situated implementation of artifact'. This research should have implications for both the Project Management and Knowledge Management communities. Practitioners should be directly benefited by this work with an in-depth understanding of social media affordances on knowledge sharing dynamics.
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Universities have long been accepted as major social and cultural institutions. They have been taken those responsibilities for centuries by doing research, teaching, learning and publishing in a scholarly manner. These institutions serve developments in various organisational forms such as 'brick and mortar (traditional campus base)', 'click (distance-online)', and 'brick and click (traditional campus base with distance-online)' types. This study aims to search new opportunities and developments brought by Web 2.0 (Social Web) technologies into university's teaching and learning roles. These innovative communication platforms encourage people to share their thoughts and experiences to collaborate thorough the interactive Social Media. Knowledge as an organizational strategic asset is distributed and created by new way of interactions within groups. Therefore universities can use Web 2.0 services in accordance with their organisational missions and strategies.
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Purpose - This paper presents an integrated framework for designing and investigating students' engagement patterns and learning presence in educational blogs. The framework was grounded in the ideas of self-directed and reflective learning, and was applied to analyse students' blogging activities in the context of an undergraduate course. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed research framework was organised along three dimensions: content artefacts, blogging processes and community building. With regards to the methodological tools used, this study integrates Content Analysis of students' posts using the framework of Community of Inquiry (CoI), the representation of Learning Mapping and Social Network Analysis methods. Findings - The results revealed important information about the different ways of students' engagement and learning presence within the blogging groups, the contribution and the influence each student had, as well as the structure and the cohesion of the learning community developed around the blogging project. Research limitations/implications - The findings of this study are limited by the blended course features, the specific sample and the context of implementation. Future research needs to consider and analyse students' lurking or invisible presence in educational blogging communities. Practical implications – This study has yielded promising results with regard to the design of educational blogs in higher education that aim to enhance students' engagement, reflection, collaboration and self-directed learning. Originality/value - The originality concerns the proposed conceptual framework which can guide the design, monitoring and analysis of blogging processes in order to reveal students' learning presence within self-directed communities of blogging. Keywords: educational blogging, learning presence, integrated analysis framework, reflective learning, self-directed learning
... In this context, being clear why Web 2.0 is being introduced is important. This clarity will help ensure that any development meets a stated goal and this will assist in ensuring an effective adoption across the organisation (Baxter et al., 2010). More importantly, whether governments are initiating small-scale pilot projects or contemplating a larger roll-out of Web 2.0 technologies, it is essential for them to be aware of the impact of these tools in order for successful implementation (Chang and Kanna, 2008). ...
Public administration has endured signification transformation over the last decade enabled largely through Information and Communication Technology. In recent times, second generation web technologies (Web 2.0) such as social media and networking sites are increasingly being used by governments for its digital activities ranging from public relations to knowledge management. However, as Web 2.0 technologies are more interactive than the traditional models of information provision or creation of digital services, these technologies have brought about a new set of opportunities and challenges to those government authorities. This study draws on the extant literature to examine the opportunities that Web 2.0 technologies offer to public authorities and the challenges they may need to overcome when integrating these technologies into their work practices.
The development of the Web 2.0 in recent years has triggered the use of web-based tools like, for instance, blogs that can be used both as language development and assessment tools (García Laborda, 2013). This article addresses the difficulties that teacher trainees have when they create and manage in groups their own blogs in a fourth-year course on Didactics of the English language. A sample of blogs created by 15 students in the fourth year of a teacher training program for primary school teachers at the University of Alcalá (Spain) was analyzed qualitatively. Specifically, the usefulness of blogs, as well as the difficulties and constraints encountered by students when creating and managing a blog and the effort put into the creation of social applications in the classroom, among other items. Finally, a questionnaire was handed out to students to analyze the limitations and benefits of this tool in the classroom. The main conclusion is that the identification of the analysis of difficulty that students present during the implementation and management of a blog will provide suggestions for teachers-to-be and current university teachers in education Degrees. RESUMEN El desarrollo de la Web 2.0 en los últimos años ha permitido la evolución y posterior uso de herramientas web como, por ejemplo, los blogs, que pueden ser usados tanto como herramientas de desarrollo como de evaluación (García Laborda, 2013). El artículo que aquí se presenta muestra las dificultades con las que aspirantes a docentes se encuentran al crear y manejar, en grupos, sus propios blogs. Para este estudio se han analizado de manera cualitativa los blogs de 15 estudiantes en el Grado de Educación Primaria de la Universidad de Alcalá y en la asignatura de Didáctica de la Lengua Inglesa. Más concretamente, se ha analizado el uso de los blogs, así como la dificultad que los alumnos y alumnas percibían durante la creación y manejo de estos y el esfuerzo dedicado a la actividad durante la duración de la asignatura, entre otros ítems. Posteriormente, se pidió a los alumnos que respondieran a un breve cuestionario acerca de las dificultades o beneficios de esta herramienta en el aula. La principal conclusión que se puede extraer de este estudio es que el análisis de la dificultad que presentan los alumnos y alumnas durante la creación y desarrollo de un blog proporcionará sugerencias acerca de su uso beneficioso para futuros docentes y actuales profesores universitarios de grados de educación. Palabras
In this paper we examine the implications of the newly introduced Unitary Patent
Blogging has been associated with the Library and Information Science (LIS) community for some time now. Libfocus.com is an online blog that was founded in 2011. Its goal was to create a communal communication space for LIS professionals in Ireland and beyond, to share and discuss issues and ideas. The content of the blog is curated by an editorial team, and features guest bloggers from across all sectors and experience levels. Using a qualitative methodological approach, open-ended surveys were conducted with twelve previous guest bloggers, in order to explore how and why Irish-based LIS professionals choose to communicate through blogging. It is hoped that this evidence will provide a greater understanding of both the value and effectiveness of blogging as an outreach and communication tool within the profession, helping both libraries and librarians to be more strategic in their use of it as a medium.
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The phrase 'learning in the face of mystery' is borrowed - in homage -from Barry Turner, who coined it in contrast to 'learning in the face of problems', which assumes learning to be voluntaristic, always functional to the organization, synonymous with change. The shift from the one to the other resides in an aesthetic choice between rationality and relationality. In fact, in spite of the huge amount of literature on organizational learning, there is still very little understanding about organizing as a practice based on a distributed knowledge system. At the same time, the normative/prescriptive discourse on Organizational Learning and the Learning Organization is mobilized as a further means of organizational control. The aim of this paper is to explore, from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge, the implicit assumptions underlying the Organizational Learning literature, and to look for alternative ways of conceptualizing learning-working-innovating as non-distinct activities. The term 'learning-in-organizing' is proposed as a replacement for 'organizational learning', so that its distributed and provisional nature can be considered when interpreted as a practical accomplishment.
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This paper considers four things in particular. Firstly, the origins of Action Research as a technique; secondly, its definition; thirdly, and mainly, the author wishes to draw some implications from the definition which are not at first obvious; and fourthly, the kinds of situations in which it seems to have most applicability.
- James P. Walsh
- Gerardo Rivera Ungson
In this article we argue that the extant representations of the concept of organizational memory are fragmented and underdeveloped. In developing a more coherent theory, we address possible concerns about anthropomorphism; define organizational memory and elaborate on its structure; and discuss the processes of information acquisition, retention, and retrieval. Next, these processes undergird a discussion of how organizational memory can be used, misused, or abused in the management of organizations. Some existing theories are reassessed with explicit attention to memory. The paper closes with an examination of the methodological challenges that await future researchers in this area.
How Are Blogs Used In Organizati Application On Behalf Of Social Learningal
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239322005_Organisational_blogs_Benefits_and_challenges_of_implementation
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