When blogging is a challenge: An organizational and psychological analysis of a failed empowerment project

Abstract

Literature supports the effectiveness of blogs to improve communication, strategic thinking, and collaboration. These competencies are particularly relevant for organizations, and for this reason, social media are frequently used as opportunities to better manage employees' behaviors, enhance the transfer of knowledge, and foster creativity. Despite these considerations, few research-based findings guide these new tools' practical application in the organizational environment's training processes. This study aims to understand the organizational, individual, and socio-relational processes and issues that occur during a blog-based training program and how they interact and influence its effectiveness. We present a casestudy based on the use of discourse analysis, focused on the failure of a blogbased training project. Our findings suggest the employees' metacognitive awareness is a significant issue in the design and implementation of a blog-based training program. Insights derived from conversation analysis suggest that to manage a blog-based training program effectively, it is crucial to deal with face-to-face interaction and the group sense-making process ‘outside' the blog.