Managing Wikis In Business « Think Much

Managing Wikis In Business

October 3 2007

As part of my MBA in Technology Management with the Open University Business School, Milton Keynes, UK I have been researching the use and management of wikis in business. During my research I set up a research wiki to record various elements of the research, including the survey, interviews, findings, conclusions and recommendations. You can read more about my research in the Final Report - Managing Wikis in Business - September 2007

Here’s a snapshot of what the Report covers and concludes:

The study investigates how businesses can manage wikis to facilitate collaboration in the workplace. In doing so, it describes a process framework for managing wiki implementations and analyses how ‘learning organisation’ themes can aid in that process. It also considers whether a wiki can act as more than a mere technological enabler for wider information dissemination, by providing an independent mechanism whose management and widespread use can encourage organisational learning.

Based on interviews and responses to a web-based survey, this study found that wikis are relatively new phenomena in businesses, whose use, management and growth, to date, have been dependent largely on grassroots initiatives of self-motivated technical users. Those users are typically technologically familiar, more venturesome, well-networked and able to cope with uncertainty during early adoption stages.

However, to sustain wiki-usage and grow it to other user groups more active/responsive managerial support is required to help develop a shared understanding of, and the skills/practices required for, wiki usage, and to overcome key barriers to wiki adoption. Furthermore, each stage of the wiki management cycle should be informed by, and provides opportunities to engage in, organisational learning practices, involving systems thinking, leadership, learning, teamwork and feedback.

It also indicates that wikis have provided platforms for collaborative and emergent behaviour, enabling people to work/communicate more efficiently and effectively, learn from past experience and share knowledge/ideas in organisational contexts that are not averse to collaboration. Whilst it has not been possible to conclude whether changes to organisational learning characteristics have resulted from wikis’ fostering of such collaborative/emergent behaviour, or will become more pronounced as wikis mature, it does highlight scope for longitudinal research in this area.

Entry Filed under: Collaboration, Leadership, Learning, Wikis. Tags: Collaboration, Learning organisation, Managing Wikis in Business, Organisational learning, wiki adoption, wiki management cycle.

10 Comments Add your own

1. Managing Wikis in Busines&hellip | October 10 2007 at 6:46 am

[...] paper is called Managing Wikis in Business. You can get a pdf copy of this great research into wikis in the workplace here. The paper [...]
2. Blog on Wiki Patterns &ra&hellip | October 10 2007 at 11:30 pm

[...] project at The Open University Business School. The results of that research are out today in Managing Wikis in Business, a report available on Penny’s blog today. The wiki where she’s documented the research [...]
3. gmclean | October 12 2007 at 12:05 pm

Hi there, not sure if you are aware but the PDF download fails about halfway through.

Anyway, I’m researching a presentation on using Wikis for Collaborative Authoring and would like to thank you for posting your research and information. There is some great stuff here and on your Wiki.
4. Penny | October 12 2007 at 1:26 pm

Hi Gordon - Many thanks for your comment on my blog and about my research. I’m really glad you are
finding my work useful! Let me know if you have any questions and if I can be of any
help to you with your work - I’ll see what I can do. And of course I would be very
grateful for any further comments you may have about my research.

I don’t know why you’re having trouble down-loading the pdf of my report - but in any
case I’ve forwarded you a copy.
5. Managing Wikis In Busines&hellip | October 14 2007 at 7:34 am

[...] Click to read: Managing Wikis in Business [...]
6. Valeurs d’Usages rc&hellip | October 21 2007 at 4:55 pm

[...] il retourne ? Voici un extrait d’un document de travail de fin de MBA Technology Management (Managing Wikis in Business, Penny Edwards, 2007) : A business’s “ability to implement major changes in its processes [...]
7. Valeurs d’Usages rc&hellip | October 21 2007 at 6:26 pm

[...] Managing Wikis in Business est un travail réalisé dans le cadre d’un MBA in Technology Management. [...]
8. Social Software in Librar&hellip | November 13 2007 at 1:39 am

[...] Managing Wikis In Business « Think Much - by Penny Edwards (tags: chapter5) Filed under: links by delicious linkpost @ 9:19 pm | | Top [...]
9. Business » Managing&hellip | March 11 2008 at 5:36 am

[...] Research more about this from here [...]
10. vixyyz | March 27 2008 at 1:53 am

Hi penny,

I would like to see your database mean the original file from your research. Is it possible?