News
| 21.09.2020

Doctoral thesis: Video communication increases the openness of business strategies

Brief video messages have become part of everyday social media communication, and they were a growing trend within internal corporate communications in the 2010s. New research shows that using video messages for strategic communications increases the feeling of transparency and inclusion within the company.

In her doctoral thesis ”What are you looking at?! Online videos as visual strategic organizational communication”, Mikaela Krohn has identified a specific genre of visual communication within organisations when strategy is being discussed. 

“We expect strategy to be something serious that is often communicated in formal correspondence or in auditorium presentations that are appropriate for strategy as a topic. My research focuses on how employees act and react towards important messages being communicated unconventionally through online videos,” Krohn says.

This particular type of communication practice is an example of how the communication culture we have adopted within our private social media is starting to enter the workplace. Initially, you might think that many people appreciate having this type of informal communication at work as well. 

“At first glance, these videos seem to have no direct impact on daily operations. Just a fraction of the employees actually takes the time to watch the videos. The vast majority prefer the more traditional communication channels such as meetings with their own supervisor. But when we look at the phenomenon in greater detail, we notice the small, but important, effects the videos have,” Krohn points out.

Krohn’s results indicate that visual communications influence a company’s social situation, in terms of both visibility and visuality. Videos can make a visible impression with one single glance. The employees notice that news have been published, even though they do not engage in watching the video. It increases the feeling of transparency within the organisation. On the other hand, those employees who chose to watch the videos and experience the video’s visual communication style may feel an emotional connection and engagement far beyond the actual content of the message, but only if they consider the visual communication style as genuine.

“In the best case, visual communications by video can increase engagement with the company’s strategy. In the worst case, the message of the video might get interpreted as a joke and distance the employees from the strategic direction. We have to realize that when we incorporate communication tools from social media in a company’s internal communications, we also include social media’s unpredictable communication culture,” Krohn says.

You can read the doctoral thesis in full here .  

The event will be held virtually.
You can join the Teams meeting here.  The link will go online at 12:00 noon on 25 September .

https://doi.org/10.1108/QROM-01-2018-1603

Contact details:

Mikaela Krohn
E-mail: mikaela.krohn@hanken.fi
Telephone 050 4129 737

Mikaela Krohn will be defending her doctoral thesis at 12:00 noon on 25 September 2020 . The field of study is Management and Organisation.
Opponent: Professor Emma Bell – The Open University
Custos: Professor Janne Tienari