Performing catharsis: The use of online discussion forums in organizational change

Authors:
João Vieira da Cunha;Wanda J. Orlikowski
Affiliations:
School of Management and Economics, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, R. Marquês da Fronteira, 20, P-1099-038 Lisbon, Portugal;Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 50 Memorial Drive (E53-325), Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
Venue:
Information and Organization
Year:
2008

Citing 8
Cited 4

Electronic mail as a coalition-building information technology

ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS)
Privacy advocacy groups versus Intel: a case study of how social movements are tactically using the Internet to fight corporations

Social Science Computer Review - Special issue on survey and statistical computing in the new millennium
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution

Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
Communication and Trust in Global Virtual Teams

Organization Science
The Mutual Knowledge Problem and Its Consequences for Dispersed Collaboration

Organization Science
Determinants of User Innovation and Innovation Sharing in a Local Market

Management Science
Evolving communities of practice: IBM global services experience

IBM Systems Journal
Why should i share? examining social capital and knowledge contribution in electronic networks of practice

MIS Quarterly

Review: Coping with information technology challenges to identity: A theoretical framework

Computers in Human Behavior
Discursive construction of 'user innovations' in the open source software development context

Information and Organization
The influence of self-discrepancy between the virtual and real selves in virtual communities

Computers in Human Behavior
Factors influencing information distortion in online deliberations: The effects of informational characteristics and regulatory focus

Computers in Human Behavior

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Online discussion forums have been used to both support and resist organizational change. Our empirical study examined how employees in one organization used an online forum to help them deal discursively with changes that they perceived as threatening to their identity. In particular, we found that the postings of one key individual were central in framing the organizational changes in a way that had powerful cathartic consequences for employees' feelings of anger and loss of face. Paradoxically, however, we also found that such use of the online forum had the contradictory consequence of helping to facilitate the very changes that employees perceived to be problematic.