De ethische vraagstukken rondom het bloggen door medewerkers

De unversiteit van South Alabama en de Universiteit van Florida hebben een onderzoek gedaan naar de ethische vraagstukken rondom het bloggen door medewerkers van bedrijven. De samenvatting luidt:

*nearly half (45%) of those who responded are aware of situations where employees of their company (or of a client�s organization) have openly communicated on weblogs.
* Although employees who blog arewriting both positive and negative things about their organizations, it appears that the positive outweighs the negative.
* Nearly half of the study�s respondents (49%) think it�s ethical for employees to write negative things about the organizations they work for on a weblog.
* A large percentage (79%) believe it is ethical for organizations to monitor information their employees have written on weblogs,
* 59% say it is ethical to discipline employees who write negative statements.
* A huge majority (89%) said this was permissible to conduct research or measurement studies that focus on information their employees are blogging.and only four percent disagreed. However, in spite of this only three percent of the respondents said their companies had ever commissioned or conducted such research.
* Nearly half (46%) of those from organizations not currently measuring employee blogging believe their companies will do so eventually.
* Respondents were less likely to criticize, and more likely to disagree with disciplinary action, in cases where labor union represented employees, acting on behalf of the union, write negative statements about the organization they work for on a blog.

Zie voor een white paper van dit onderzoek het Institute For PR