Bulletin Board 2.0 Development of a concept for the Voestalpine Steel Division

Internal corporate communication plays a vital role for companies as it, among others, contributes positively to the satisfaction, commitment and trust of employees towards the company they work for. However, the bigger the size of a company and thus the number of departments and employees, the more complex internal corporate communication becomes. Therefore, internal corporate communication is also a sensitive topic for the voestalpine Steel Division with almost eleven thousand employees. In this respect, the bulletin board is a communication medium the voestalpine Steel Division sees great potential in to facilitate communication with blue-collar workers as well as white-collar workers not least because information presented on each bulletin board can be adjusted individually to the respective area it is located in. At the moment, however, there are more than 200 bulletin boards allocated throughout the company area and there are no clear responsibilities for the maintenance of the bulletin boards, which makes a standardized and systematic communication via this medium a great challenge.
To systematically develop a concept that allows to use the whole potential of the bulletin board and to reposition it as an attractive medium of internal communication for the voestalpine Steel Division is the main objective of the present master thesis. For this purpose, the bulletin board 2.0 will be regarded as a new product that is to be developed in an innovation process before it will be introduced to the market which is the company area and whose customers are deemed the white- and blue-collar workers of the voestalpine Steel Division. Thus, the elaboration of a systematic development process for the product development and market introduction of the bulletin board 2.0, the definition of kinds of information presented and their organization on the bulletin board 2.0 as well as the determination of responsibilities for the maintenance of the bulletin board 2.0 are issues that need to be addressed in the course of this thesis.
Hence, a combination of scientifically sound findings, on the one hand, and practical conditions from the voestalpine Steel Division, on the other hand, shall help to resolve these issues and to provide a valuable concept for the bulletin board 2.0. Therefore, the first main part of the thesis is dedicated to elaborating a conceptual foundation based on academic literature. This conceptual foundation then serves as the basis for the second main part which constitutes the systematic development of a concept for the bulletin board 2.0. Moreover, data from an already existing thesis indicating employees’ requirements with regard to the bulletin board as well as the findings from expert interviews conducted in the course of the present thesis are also considered in the development of the concept for the bulletin board 2.0.
Regarding the conceptual foundation, one main finding thereof is the importance internal corporate communication has for a company. Hence, internal corporate communication may help to increase a sense of commitment, belonging, awareness and understanding among the employees of a company, which points out the practical relevance of the bulletin board 2.0 as internal communication medium. Besides that, in the conceptual foundation various types of innovation are defined. This leads to the identification of the bulletin board 2.0 as product-, process- and marketing innovation, which gives indications on how to organize the systematic development of the bulletin board 2.0. First, though, the stakeholders of the bulletin board 2.0 are defined that are the companies of the voestalpine Steel Division, on the one hand, and information suppliers, on the other hand. With regard to the information suppliers, three main groups responsible for the provision of information stemming from various sources are identified which are the corporate communications department, the respective company as well as the works council. Based on this finding, the bulletin board 2.0 should be divided into three different sections according to these three groups, which would allow building up a network of responsibilities and thus facilitate the maintenance of the bulletin board 2.0.
In conclusion, the functioning and the success of the bulletin board 2.0 highly depend on responsibilities especially with regard to the maintenance of it.Thus, the concept for the bulletin board 2.0 elaborated in the course of this thesis shall help the corporate communications department of the voestalpine Steel Division to introduce the bulletin board 2.0 as an attractive medium of internal communication and secure its viability in the long run in order to maximize its benefit for both employees and the voestalpine Steel Division.