Organisational Change Through (Social) Media – Results from Comparative Studies at Three Different Points of Web Communication Development within Organizations

Abstract

The rapid pace of change in the world demands that companies and organisations realign themselves to market conditions at an ever increasing pace. In these transformation processes, internal communication plays a crucial role.

This paper analyses the classical forms of internal communication, and the challenges they currently face, before analysing the present use of social media in this field, and the potential for future use of such tools.

In the review of internal change communication in the past, the paper analyses the differing expectations of general managers and communication professionals regarding communication, before describing the role played by the intranet in change communication at Lufthansa.

A review of the current research on the use of social media in internal change communication is followed by case studies analysing current internal social media use at Lufthansa and the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The authors conclude by making recommendations for how social media should be used to fulfill the enormous potential they have in internal change communication, analysing how this might be possible in the coming years in the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They conclude that it is not a question of if companies want to open up more to social media, but how they can do this in a way that benefits the company and its employees.

Keywords: social media, change communication

JEL Classification: Z00