Investigating with the help of latour and the letters from the archives This paper presents a study that was based on the reading of historical

While we aimed to explore the capabilities needed in order to adopt ESN successfully and thereby examine possible impediments affecting a more effective usage of ESN, the inter-viewees were asked about their most obvious key challenges faced by the organization associ-ated with ESN (Table 4-13).

Table 4-13. Findings about the key challenges associated with ESN.

Key challenges/ What hinders a more efficient use A  Lack of commitment from managers

Lack of clear expectations

B

 Driving engagement is a crucial point for effective use of ESN

 When an ESN platform is installed but no one is using it, then ESN is 100% useless

 Give a reason to employees to use ESN

C

 Lack of commitment from managers

 When management do not see the need of ESN and rejects it, it is difficult to adopt ESN success-fully as a bottom-up action

 Individuals' participation and engagement including a proper stakeholder management are crucial points in order to implement ESN successfully

 The individual employee and its fear of changes

 Organization do not know what ESN should be used for and how to use it properly

 It is crucial to align the implementation of ESN with the organizational culture

D

 Idea of the adoption of Tibbr arose in first line in the process and IT department, rather than being initiated from the top-management level

 The biggest issue was ta lack of a clear message from the top, indicating the need of an ESN and hence, it had his own momentum resulting in a failed adoption

 The major reason for the failure of the adoption was that the persons, normally have the owner-ship and who are responsible for internal and external communication, were not involved in the project.

E

 Lack of commitment from managers

 Managers need to be open for ESN as employees are not ready to use ESN unless they see their managers doing so as well

F

 Lack of commitment from managers

 Continuous active participation is needed for higher utilization rate within the organization

 For only if the employees are being guided, aware of the benefits and know how to integrate the ESN in their procedures, it will be actively and efficiently used from all employees over time

Lack of leadership and management support. According to IA, IC, IE and IF, the major reason hindering a more efficient use of ESN is lack of commitment from managers. Accord-ing to IE, the managers need to be open for ESN, because people are not ready to use ESN unless they see their managers doing so as well. If the manager is unwilling to use ESN then it will be difficult to get employees to participate within ESN, and it might even just stop there.

Furthermore, he claimed, that if the employee feels “like the managers do not like that their employees are using ESN, the employee will not use it”. In addition, IC stated that when the management do not see the need of the ESN and thus reject it, it is difficult to adopt an ESN successfully as a bottom-up action. As many organizations are still structured hierarchical, it is almost impossible to introduce an ESN based on a bottom-up approach. Besides this, he views the individuals' participation and engagement including a proper stakeholder manage-ment as crucial points in order to implemanage-ment an ESN successfully. Indeed, the case of the failed implementation in ID’ organization could demonstrate the importance of the manage-ment support. As ID argued, the idea of the adoption of Tibbr arose in first line in the process and IT department, rather than being initiated from the top-management level, where the lack of a clear message from the top, indicating the need of an ESN was particularly the issue. ID further believes that social collaboration was not supported enough from the top level man-agement, where they had in his opinion too little thoughts on it. It thus had its own momen-tum, whilst it was not clearly defined, what path they aimed to take and thus lead to a missing crucial requirement in order to continue resulting in a failed adoption. He further indicated, that the other major reason for the failure of the adoption was the lack of involvement and motivation by the department of corporate communication within the adoption of ESN, while they are normally responsible for internal and external communication and hence, should have the ownership of the ESN project. Indeed, ID argued, that the lack of willingness among man-agement and corporate communications was the main reasons for the failure of the adoption.

However, he further stated, that other areas of concerns such as possible security breaches and the uncertainty of what information should be shared within the ESN as well as where the boundaries should be drawn led to the failure.

Lack of clear expectations. Furthermore, as stated by IA, the lack of clear expectations might be seen as one other challenge, where another possible challenge is driving employee's engagement, which in IB's opinion is a crucial point in gaining an effective use of ESN. IB furthermore explained that if an organization has an ESN platform installed but no one is us-ing it then ESN is 100% useless. Employees also need a reason to use the tool, where it is not possible just put technical things in their lab and say like go ahead and use it. There needs to be some incentive for them to use it. Moreover, IC believes that one of the major challenges regarding the adoption of an ESN is the individual employee and its fear of changes. As IF argued, it is not sufficient, to just provide the technology as it was done in their organization and then assume that all employees just use it. He stated, in order to reach a higher utilization rate within their organization and thereby having a continuous active participation, it is need-ed, that the management clearly communicate precise instructions for using the ESN. Moreo-ver, he believes, that the organization has to go even one step further back and analyse in de-tail the expectations and requirements of the employees in order to gain an understanding how it can be important and useful in the day-to-day work of the individuals. He thereby reasoned, that for only if the employees are being guided, aware of the benefits and know how to inte-grate the ESN in their procedures, it will be actively and efficiently used from all employees over time. IC claimed, that ESN can be a very powerful tool, but when an organization does not know what ESN should be used for and how to use it properly, it is just waste of time and useless. Thus, he concludes, it is crucial to learn how to deal with an ESN correctly in the first place in order to adopt an ESN successfully. Moreover, he believes, it is crucial, that an or-ganization align the implementation of the ESN with the oror-ganizational culture, while several aspects need to be considered: what management culture exists, how employees treat one an-other, what fundamental values are anchored in the organization, if a corporate team exists and if there are common work procedures or practices presented in all areas within the organi-zation. Analysing these aspects, he contended, that it allows organizations to gain a broader understanding enabling a more successful adoption of ESN.

Summary. In summary, the major reason hindering a more efficient use of ESN found by the interviewees is lack of commitment from managers, where it has been argued that managers need to be open for ESN, support the ESN adoption and need to clearly communicate precise instructions for using the ESN. In addition, another stated challenge associated with the ESN is the lack of involvement and motivation by the department, who normally holds the respon-sibility of internal and external communication. Further challenges were mentioned such as lack of incentives for employees to use it, missing awareness about the possible individual benefits, alignment with the organizational culture, driving employee's engagement and lack of clear expectations.

5 Discussion

This chapter is to discuss the results of the empirical findings in relation to our literature re-view, where the discussion has been divided in two main chapters, mainly capabilities in terms of organizational, cultural and structural readiness, and key enablers. Furthermore, both of the main chapters include subchapters that have been used throughout the study.

5.1 Capabilities in terms of organizational, cultural and structural