Here is some useful research, Managing Wikis in Business, on the use and management of wikis in business. It was developed by Penny Edwards as part of her MBA in Technology Management with the Open University Business School, Milton Keynes, UK. The study looks at how businesses can best manage wikis to facilitate collaboration in the workplace. It also examines whether a wiki can be more that simply a technology platform. Can it also encourage organizational learning?
The researcher 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.” It suggests that management intervention is needed to enable wiki use to be effective. This is consistent with other reports that imply some structure is useful in for the open ended environment that wiki’s provide. This structure applies to both the wiki itself, and to how it is used.
While the researcher found that wikis can be an effective platform for organizational learning, it was unclear if the platform goes beyond that to actually change organizational behavior. Penny suggests that more longitudinal research is needed on that question. I have talked to others who provide anecdotal reports of organizational behavior changes after the adoption of web 2.0 tools and related business practices (see for example, summary of Growing Collection of Enterprise 2.0 Success Stories).
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