Determinants Impacting Efficacy of Organizational Blogs
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14738/abr.41.1666Abstract
Abstract: Recent revolution in the Information and Communication Technology has brought forth several tools for organizational learning and knowledge transfer. Organizational blogging has received considerable attention for its use for managed socialization leading to dialogue, reflection and knowledge transfer among the employees of large organizations. However this powerful tool of knowledge sharing can lead to adverse consequences in the absence of suitable checks in organizations. The paper uses the framework of interpersonal relationships proposed by Hon and Grunig to identify determinants that can impact efficacy of organizational blogs as a knowledge sharing tool. A case study of organizational blog of a leading service provider of India in the field of communication is presented for validating the findings from the literature. We suggest the possibility of using moderator to overcome the anticipated pitfalls in use of this popular medium of knowledge sharing in organizations.
References
Baoill, A. (2004). Conceptualizing the weblog: Understanding what it is in order to imagine what
it can be. Interfacings: Journal of Contemporary Media Studies, 5(2), 1-8.
Baxter, G. J., & Connolly, T. M. (2013). The “state of art” of organisational blogging. Learning
Organization, The, 20(2), 104-117.
Bishop, T. Microsoft Fires Worker over Weblog. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 30 October 2003
Canary, D. J., & Stafford, L. (1992). Relational maintenance strategies and equity in marriage.
Communication Monographs, 59(3), 243–67.
Carlin, S., Lee, J., Lemons, D., O'Dell, C., & Swift, G. (2008). The Role of Evolving Technologies:
Accelerating Collaboration and Knowledge Transfer: APQC.
Cone, E. Rise of the Blog. CIO Insight, 5 April 2005
Du, H. S., & Wagner, C. (2006). Weblog success: Exploring the role of technology. International
Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 64(9), 789-798.
Edwards, A. 2002. The Moderator as an Emerging Democratic Intermediary: The Role of the
Moderator in Internet Discussions about Public Issues. Information Polity 7(1): 3-20.
Efimova, L. & Grudin, J. (2007). Crossing boundaries: A case study of employee blogging.
Proceedings of the Fortieth Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-40).
Los Alamitos: IEEE Press.
H. Jina, J. Lauretta, E. Thomas, A. K. Wendy, K. E. B. Rachel, and C. T. John, "BlogCentral: the role
of internal blogs at work," in CHI '07 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing
systems San Jose, CA, USA: ACM, 2007.
Hasan, H., & Pfaff, C. (2006). The Wiki: a tool to support the activities of the knowledge worker.
Paper presented at the Proceedings at the Transformational Tools for 21st Century
Hon, L. C., & Grunig, J. (1999). Guidelines for measuring relationships in public relations.
Gainesville, FL: The Institute for Public Relations. Retrieved January 26, 2006, from
http://www.instituteforpr.com/pdf/1999_guide_measure_relationships.pdf
Huang, Y. H [1997]. Public Relations Strategies, Relational Outcomes, and Conflict Management
Strategies, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park.
Kaiser, S., Müller-Seitz, G., Lopes, M. P., & e Cunha, M. P. (2007). Weblog-technology as a trigger
to elicit passion for knowledge. Organization, 14(3), 391-412.
Kearns, I., J. Bend, and B. Stern. 2002. E-participation in Local Government. London: Institute for
Public Policy Research.
Kelleher, T. (2009). Conversational voice, communicated commitment, and public relations
outcomes in interactive online communication. Journal of communication, 59(1), 172-188.
Kelleher, T., & Miller, B. M. (2006). Organizational blogs and the human voice: Relational
strategies and relational outcomes. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 11(2),
-414.
Lee, H. H., Park, S. R., & Hwang, T. (2008). Corporate-level blogs of the Fortune 500 companies:
an empirical investigation of content and design. International Journal of Information
Technology and Management, 7(2), 134-148.
McAfee, A. P. (2009). Shattering the myths about Enterprise 2.0. IT Management Select, 15(4),
Moitra, D., & Kumar, K. (2007). Managed socialization: how smart companies leverage global
knowledge. Knowledge and Process Management, 14(3), 148-157.
Ojala, M. (2004), “Weaving weblogs into knowledge sharing and dissemination. Nord I&D,
knowledge and change”, Proceedings of the 12th Nordic Conference on Information and
Documentation, 1-3 September 2004, Aalborg. Nord I&D Knowledge and Change, available at:
www2.db.dk/NIOD/ojala.pdf (accessed 30 September 2008).
Roll, M. (2004), “Distributed KM – improving knowledge workers’ productivity and
organizational knowledge sharing with web log-based personal publishing”,, paper presented
at BlogTalk 2.0, “The European Conference on Weblogs”, Vienna, July 5-6.
Silva, L., Mousavidin, E. and Goel, L. (2006), “Weblogging: implementing communities of
practice”, in Trauth, E., Howcroft, D., Butler, T., Fitzgerald, B. and DeGross, J. (Eds), IFIP
International Federation for Information Processing, Vol. 208, Social Inclusion: Societal and
Organizational Implications for Information Systems, Springer, Boston, MA, pp. 295-316.
Stafford,D. J.,& Canary, L. (1991).Maintenance strategies and romantic relationship type, gender
and relational characteristics. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 8(2), 217–42.
Stata, R. (1989), “Organizational learning – the key to management innovation”, Sloan
Management Review, Vol. 30 No. 3, pp. 63-74.
Stephens, R. T. (2013, April). Success in a large scale corporate blogging environment. In
Southeastcon, 2013 Proceedings of IEEE (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Wattal, S., Racherla, P., & Mandviwalla, M. (2009, January). Employee adoption of corporate
blogs: A quantitative analysis. In System Sciences, 2009. HICSS'09. 42nd Hawaii International
Conference on (pp. 1-10). IEEE.
Website http://www.adelaide.edu.au/myuni/staff/resources/tutorials/content/Differences
between _Discussion_Boards_Blogs_and_Wikis.html accessed on 24th Feb 2014.
Website http://www.bsnl.co.in/opencms/bsnl/BSNL/about_us/finance/finance.html accessed
on 15th Feb 2014.
Wenger, E. (1991), “Communities of practice: where learning happens”, Benchmark, Fall, pp. 1-
Williams, J. B., & Jacobs, J. (2004). Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher
education sector. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 20(2), 232-247.
Wright, S. (2006). Government‐run Online Discussion Fora: Moderation, Censorship and the
Shadow of Control1. The British Journal of Politics & International Relations, 8(4), 550-568.
Wright, S. (2009). The role of the moderator: problems and possibilities for government-run
online discussion forums. Online deliberation: Design, research, and practice, 233-242.