Governance of an Enterprise Social Intranet Implementation: The Statkraft Case

Recent studies demonstrate that the implementation of enterprise social systems (ESSs) will transfer organizations into new paradigm of social business which results in enormous economic returns and competitive advantage. Social business creates a completely new way of working and organizing characterised by social collaboration, intrinsic knowledge sharing, voluntarily mass participation, just name a few. Thus, implementation of ESSs should tackle the uniqueness of the new way of working and organizing. However, there is a shortage of knowledge about implementation of these large enterprise systems. The purpose of this paper is to study governance model of ESSs implementation. A case study is conducted to investigate the implementation of the social intranet called the ‘Stream’ at Statkraft, which is a world-leading energy company in Norway. The governance model of ‘Stream’ emphasizes the close cooperation and accountability between corporate communication, human resources and IT, which implies paradigm shift in governance of implementing ESSs. Benefits and challenges in the implementation are also identified. Based on the knowledge and insights gained in the study, recommendations are proposed to assist the company in improving governance of ESSs implementation. The study contributes knowledge/know-how on governance of ESSs implementation