Organizational Blogging: An Explorative Case Study of a Corporate Weblog from an Employees’ Perspective

The purpose of this paper is to address and discuss implications of blog usage in a corporatecommunication context from an employees’ perspective by analyzing the local context and the underlyingmotivations of corporate blogging as they are being discursively constructed by a group of organizationalbloggers. The paper presents findings from a case study of a government agency’s corporate bloggingactivity, traced through focus group interviews with the organizational bloggers. Based on an empiricalinvestigation of the organizational bloggers using situational analysis and thematic network analysis,central contextual elements and implications are unfolded and discussed, providing a documented,nuanced and deep insight and understanding into blog usage in a corporate context from the perspective ofthe employee bloggers. Insights and further understanding about blogging from inside an organization isas critical to our understanding of blogging and social media in a corporate context, as it is to ourunderstanding of transparent and participatory organizational culture. The findings are useful formanagers to get insight into the implications of corporate blogging, i.e. the challenges and resources,barriers and opportunities, which employees experience when acting as bloggers, as well as when actingon other transparent Web 2.0 mediated communications platforms for corporate purposes.