PHDCOM006 Evaluating the application of blogs through the use of a blog implementation framework: a comparative study within different industry disciplines and contexts.

Social computing technologies have still to encounter widespread use in organisations (Ip and Wagner, 2008). Previous studies on organisational blog use do however indicate that certain organisations have been quick to realise the benefits of using blogs for the purposes of communication and knowledge sharing (Huh et al., 2007). Though prior research into organisational blog use has predominately focused on their application within IT corporations (Grudin, 2006) research into blog use in different industry contexts appears to be at a rudimentary stage.

The focus of this study will involve investigating and contrasting the internal use of blogs for the purposes of organisational learning within organisations of different industry backgrounds that might include disciplines such as health or manufacture. In addition, the work performed in this study will involve enhancing and validating a Web2.0 implementation framework that has been previously empirically tested in the ICT and education sectors (Baxter, Connolly, Stansfield, et al., 2011; Baxter, Connolly, Stansfield, 2009). The framework will be applied during the course of this research study to assess whether it is applicable in facilitating the implementation and subsequent use of organisational blogs within different industry disciplines and contexts. This will provide an opportunity for comparisons and generalisations to be made among different industry sectors to assess whether the use of blogs are applicable towards facilitating learning through the sharing of knowledge.

Adopting an exploratory perspective, this research study will undertake a case study methodology using a mixed methods approach employing the use of questionnaires, interviews and focus groups. The main epistemological stance of the research will be interpretivist where the role of the researcher will be to interpret meaning associated with the issues related to organisational blog use in the context of the case studies performed. Findings of the research will be assessed with regards to their contribution to knowledge in the wider academic community.

References

Baxter, G.J., Connolly, T.M., Stansfield, M.H., Tsvetkova, N., Kusheva, R., Stoimenova, B., Penkova, R., Legurska, M. and Dimitrova, N. (2011). “Introducing Web 2.0 in Education: A Structured Approach Adopting a Web 2.0 Implementation Framework”, Proceedings of International Conference on European Transnational Education (ICEUTE), 20-21 October 2011, Salamanca, Spain.

Baxter, G.J., Connolly, T.M. and Stansfield, M. (2009). "The socialisation of organisational learning through learning technology", International Journal of Internet & Enterprise Management (IJIEM), Vol. 6, No. 2, pp.164-176.

Grudin, J. (2006). Enterprise Knowledge Management and Emerging Technologies. Proceedings of the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, pp. 1-10.

Ip, R.K.F. and Wagner, C. (2008). Weblogging: A study of social computing and its impact on organizations. Vol. 45, No. 2, pp. 24-39.

Huh, J., Jones, L., Erickson, T., Kellogg, W.A., Bellamy, R. and Thomas, J.C. (2007). BlogCentral: The Role of Internal Blogs at work. In: CHI ’07 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems. April 28 – 3 May, San Jose, California, USA, pp. 2447-2452.