Fun Blogging On Company Time

In case your employer catches you blogging about your latest travels instead of the latest uses of social media for business, a new study will help you wriggle your way out of a potentially awkward situation. A recent academic paper, 'A Structural Model of Employee Behavioral Dynamics in Enterprise Social Media,’ by researchers Yan Huang and Param Vir Singh from Carnegie Mellon University and Anindya Ghose from New York University describes how the two types of blogging can co-exist in the workplace and even lead to positive outcomes. Findings from the study pointed to positive employee behavior like “knowledge sharing in enterprise setting” and “work-related content creation in an enterprise social media setting” if policies in the workplace do not prevent employees from leisure-related blogging. The study also found increased competition among blogging employees in terms of their getting others to read their posts over another’s. These are interesting findings particularly for a business that has not yet considered using this social media channel for communication within and/or outside its organization. And also for a business that might not have considered how an employee’s non work-related blogging could possibly be of value to the organization.