Organisational Blogging: The Problem of Engagement

This paper investigates the implementation and use of an internal organisational blog by several departments in the HR division in a large public sector financial organisation in the UK. This qualitative study adopts a case study approach and examines the experiences of staff using the blog to explore whether it can facilitate organisational learning. The thinking and decisions that informed the pilot study are also investigated. Initial findings indicate that implementing an internal organisational blog does not revolve around the technology itself, but the work required to inform and educate staff about the idea of using a blog for working purposes. This paper has practical implications for the practitioner community with reference to organisational management informing them of issues to consider prior to implementing new technology in team environments. The paper also examines approaches towards maintaining technology initiatives in this case blogs once they are up and running. The unique focus of this paper is that it explores blog use from the perspective of individuals who have never used them before as opposed to a department that is already familiar with the technology.

[1]  E. Wenger,et al.  Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier , 2000 .

[2]  B. Hedberg.  How Organizations Learn and Unlearn , 1981 .

[3]  Bonnie A. Nardi,et al.  Why we blog , 2004, CACM.

[4]  Fabio Paternò,et al.  End-User Development , 1998, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[5]  Edgar H. Schein,et al.  On dialogue, culture, and organizational learning , 1993 .

[6]  F. Gino,et al.  Is yours a learning organization? , 2008, Harvard business review.

[7]  Lois Ann Scheidt,et al.  Bridging the gap: a genre analysis of Weblogs , 2004, 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2004. Proceedings of the.

[8]  Hanna K. Kalla.  Integrated internal communications: a multidisciplinary perspective , 2005 .

[9]  Andrew McAfee,et al.  Enterprise 2.0: the dawn of emergent collaboration , 2006, IEEE Engineering Management Review.

[10]  Mark Stansfield,et al.  The use of blogs as organisational learning tools within project-based environments , 2009 .

[11]  Christian Wagner.  Teaching Tip: Put another (B)Log on the Wire: Publishing Learning Logs as Weblogs , 2003, J. Inf. Syst. Educ..

[12]  Anders Örtenblad.  On differences between organizational learning and learning organization , 2001 .

[13]  Gabriela Grosseck,et al.  To use or not to use web 2.0 in higher education , 2009 .

[14]  G. Baxter,et al.  How can organisations learn: an information systems development perspective , 2009 .

[15]  R. Stake.  Qualitative Case Studies. , 2005 .

[16]  Giustina Secundo,et al.  Web 2.0 project-based learning in higher education: some preliminary evidence , 2009, Int. J. Web Based Communities.

[17]  JoAnne Yates,et al.  Corporate Blogging: Building community through persistent digital talk , 2007, 2007 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'07).

[18]  Taewon Hwang,et al.  Corporate-level blogs of the Fortune 500 companies: an empirical investigation of content and design , 2008, Int. J. Inf. Technol. Manag..

[19]  Anders Örtenblad,et al.  Of course organizations can learn , 2005 .

[20]  Rachel K. E. Bellamy,et al.  BlogCentral: the role of internal blogs at work , 2007, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[21]  D. Schoen,et al.  The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action , 1985 .

[22]  Daniel H. Kim.  The Link between individual and organizational learning , 1997 .

[23]  Hanna-Kaisa Ellonen,et al.  Weblogs and internal communication in a corporate environment: a case from the ICT industry , 2007, Int. J. Knowl. Learn..

[24]  Hazel Hall,et al.  Social software as support in hybrid learning environments: the value of the blog as a tool for reflective learning and peer support. , 2007 .

[25]  Lisa Singh,et al.  Blogs: Emerging Knowledge Management Tools For Entrepreneurs to Enhance Marketing Efforts , 2008 .

[26]  Monica Divitini,et al.  Sense of community among mobile language learners: can blogs support this? , 2009, Int. J. Web Based Communities.

[27]  Anders Örtenblad,et al.  Organizational Learning: A Radical Perspective , 2002 .

[28]  M. Kennison,et al.  EVALUATING REFLECTIVE WRITING FOR Appropriateness, Fairness, and Consistency , 2002, Nursing education perspectives.

[29]  Maria Mårtensson,et al.  A critical review of knowledge management as a management tool , 2000, J. Knowl. Manag..

[30]  E. Wenger.  Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems , 2000 .

[31]  S. Høyrup.  Reflection as a core process in organisational learning , 2004 .

[32]  Christian Wagner,et al.  Weblog success: Exploring the role of technology , 2006, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[33]  J. Brown,et al.  Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation , 1991 .

[34]  Giorgio De Michelis,et al.  Using blogs to support participative learning in university courses , 2009, Int. J. Web Based Communities.

[35]  Richard Boateng,et al.  When Web 2.0 becomes an organizational learning tool: evaluating Web 2.0 tools , 2010 .

[36]  Stephan Kaiser,et al.  Acknowledging the innate impact of an information technology for engaging people in knowledge work: the case of weblog technology , 2009, Int. J. Netw. Virtual Organisations.

[37]  Maria João Gomes,et al.  Blogs: A Teaching Resource and a Pedagogical Strategy , 2008 .

[38]  J. March,et al.  Learning from Samples of One or Fewer , 1991 .

[39]  Dennis Tourish,et al.  Managing internal communication: an organizational case study , 2005 .

[40]  Marc H. Goedhart,et al.  What really drives the market , 2005 .