Intranet from above and from below : a case study about differences in opinions between leaders and employees

Our society has become more and more digitalized and we have access to more information than ever before, which has had an effect on both our personal and professional lives. This change has naturally also changed the way in which organizations are structured and how they communicate – both internally and externally. Intranets, e-mail and other technical channels are an important part of most organizations in-house communication today.The aim of this study is to examine how the internal communication in a medium-sized firm, CranabSlagkraft in the north of Sweden, works. The focus in the study is on the existing intranet, and if there are any differences in the opinions between the firms leaders and the employees that works in the production. The empirical material is collected through semi-structured interviews with representatives for the employees as well as the leaders of the firm. Theories central for the study is organizational com-munication, including leadership and the communication process, information overload, prior research about intranets and its effects and James Carney’s theory about two contrasting ways to define communi-cation.The result of the study indicate differences in views on what communication is between the leaders of the firm and the employees in production, which affects how they experience the current routines for communication in the company. Those differences correspond in many ways James Carney’s theories about a transmission view of communication and a ritual view of communication. The result also gives an insight in how the introduction of digital technology can affect the existing communication struc-tures. In this case, for example, the company has a hierarchic communication structure, where the infor-mation travels vertically from top to bottom, which the introduction of an intranet did not change. This despite theories, like the push and pull models, that suggests that intranets make the communication more horizontal