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The purpose of this study is to identify corporate blog design characteristics that positively influence the view of actual and potential corporate blog users. Moreover, based on the technology acceptance model (TAM), the paper examines the specific mechanism through which corporate blog design characteristics influence the acceptance of corporate blogs and assess the cross-country applicability of the developed framework.

Based on primary data of 992 individuals in three countries (Germany, Russia, and the USA), the paper tests the identified design characteristics and the proposed framework using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling.

The results show the applicability of the TAM in the context of corporate blogs. Blog management and usability were found to be key determinants of perceived ease of use. Entertainment value as well as content value and interaction positively affect perceived enjoyment. Content value as well as blog management and usability are the key determinants of perceived usefulness of corporate blogs. Mediation tests revealed a partial mediation of the distal corporate blog design characteristics on attitude and usage intention by the proximal TAM elements.

The sample was self-selected from internet users and a limited number of countries. Associations with and understanding of the term “corporate blog” might vary between internet users as well as between the three focus countries.

Based on the research, companies are better able to adapt corporate blogs to target group characteristics and thus can better reach communication goals. The research can be used both for the establishment of new corporate blogs as well as for the adaptation of existing corporate blogs.

This study contributes to the existing literature by identifying and examining design characteristics that affect individuals' perceptions of corporate blogs. Furthermore, this is the first large-scale cross-country study in this research context that identifies the mechanism through which firms can actively influence the perceived usefulness, ease of use, and enjoyment of corporate blogs, which is important to better understand individuals' acceptance of corporate blogs in different national contexts.

The purpose of this study is to examine the antecedents of consumers’ attitude toward corporate blogs. The antecedents include credibility, involvement and attitude toward the corporation. Blog is one marketing communications tool that has seen considerable growth in the past few years. Understanding the antecedents of attitudes toward corporate blogs may benefit practitioners responsible for communications strategies.

A pilot study was conducted to address any issues with the survey or stimuli. The main study involved 219 participants that viewed a corporate blog in a lab and then completed a survey. The data were analyzed using moderated regression.

The results show blogging involvement, blog credibility and attitude toward the corporation are related to attitude toward the corporate blog. Corporate image consistency did not moderate the relationship between attitude toward the corporation are attitude toward the corporate blog.

This study used a convenience sample thus reducing the generalizability of the findings. The stimulus was limited to a well-known electronics firm. The findings may differ for other product categories and organizations.

Marketing communications strategies are becoming more dependent on social media to reach target audiences. When using social media, organizations should focus on building credibility of their blogs. Social media strategies should consider target markets that are more involved with the specific social media.

This study examines the importance of involvement, credibility and attitude toward the corporation in the context of corporate blogging.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how major corporations in the USA utilize corporate blogs for building and maintaining relationships with various publics.

Applying the relationship management framework, a longitudinal content analysis of corporate blogs is conducted in 2006 and 2008. The blogs are identified by a thorough search of blogs operated by corporations listed on Fortune 500 companies or Interbrand Top 100 global brands. A systematic coding scheme is developed based on the existing research on relationship maintenance strategies and corporate communication.

A growing number of major corporations in the USA have adopted blogs as a corporate communication tool and the popularity of topic‐oriented blogs appears to have increased over time. While corporate blogs tend to apply various relationship maintenance strategies, the application of such strategies tends to be concentrated on a certain type of strategies.

Despite the increasing adoption of the corporate blogging practice, many corporations still do not seem to harness the unique potential of a blog to the fullest extent. To maximize the relationship management efforts, practitioners should consider expanding the scope and level of relationship management strategies. For researchers, this paper proposes a new approach for examining corporate blogs as a public relations tool by applying the relationship maintenance strategy framework.

This paper is the first attempt to provide a longitudinal overview of the state of corporate blogs and strategies. In addition to offering descriptive information about the corporate blogging practice, this paper proposes a new research framework for studying corporate blogs.

As the number of corporate blogs has continued to increase over the years, this study examines the use of relationship cultivation strategies of Fortune 500 companies on their corporate blogs. Moreover, it focuses on how companies use corporate blogs as interactive online communication channels to create a sense of community among their publics.

A content analysis of Fortune 500 company corporate blogs was conducted to examine the use of relational cultivation strategies and their methods of promoting a sense of community.

Findings indicate that networking and sharing tasks are used most frequently among all relational cultivation strategies on corporate blogs, and that there are statistically significant differences among industries for using relationship cultivation strategies on corporate blogs. The most frequently used dimension of sense of community on corporate blogs is shared emotional connection.

Studies analyzing social media as public relations tools have not yet focused on community building. In fact, few studies have examined the community building aspect of corporate blogs in the public relations field. To fill this gap, this study focuses on community building and analyzes how companies use corporate blogs as an interactive online communication channel to create a sense of community among their publics.

This study aims to investigate the emerging new phenomenon of corporate blogging and its objectives. In particular, this study focuses on how Fortune 500 firms attempt to maintain control, while supporting employee autonomy in corporate blogging.

Using the framework of corporate blogging strategies proposed in this study, corporate blogging practices of the 2005 Fortune 500 companies were analysed.

Most organisations maintain high levels of control by implementing top‐down blogging strategies, while few support employee autonomy by applying a bottom‐up blogging strategy. Because of the inherent limitation of each strategy, many organisations attempt to take advantage of the complementary mechanism that balances autonomy and control. Organisations emphasising bottom‐up blogging tend to focus on product development and customer service content strategy, while those practising top‐down blogging focus on thought leadership or promotional content strategy.

This study reports leading blogging firms among the Fortune 500 companies. However, the study sample accounts for only 3.6 percent of the 500 firms. The results of the study shed insights on newly emerging corporate blogging in terms of its trends, issues, and possible future direction.

Companies that adopt blogs must realise that developing a candid dialogue with customers is the best way to build a meaningful customer relationship.

This study is the first attempt to systematically investigate the corporate blogging phenomenon.

The aim of this paper is to address and discuss usage and implications of a weblog in a corporate communication context from an employees' perspective.

The paper is a case study of a government agency's corporate blogging activity, traced through focus group interviews with the organizational bloggers and analyzed using situational analysis and thematic network analysis.

The study problematizes the predominant focus on the promises of interactivity and dialogue as a repeated positive motivation for corporate bloggers by shedding a light on blogging as experienced from inside an organization. The study shows that employee bloggers use the blog platform in a varied way and do not agree internally on the appropriate corporate blog usage. Four main positions that encapsulate the variation in blog usage – the official, the debater, the engineer and the passionate blogger – are identified, and the implications (opportunities and barriers) of blogging for the blogging employees' behavior and motivation are unfolded and discussed.

The findings are useful for managers to get insight into the challenges, barriers and opportunities, which employees experience when acting as bloggers on behalf of an organization, as well as when acting on other transparent Web 2.0 mediated communications platforms for corporate purposes. The findings also indicate and give recommendations to the internal resources required to support the employees when letting them out into the blogosphere.

The paper provides a documented, nuanced and deep insight and understanding into blog usage in a corporate context from the perspective of the employee bloggers. This insight is as critical to our understanding of blogging and social media in a corporate context, as it is to our understanding of transparent and participatory organizational culture.

This paper focuses on the analysis of fashion blog activity regarding brands under corporate crisis situations and discusses how these opinion leaders may be agents of corporate crisis management.

The authors analyzed four influential Portuguese fashion blogs regarding eight fashion brands that had experienced a corporate crisis situation. In total, five of the selected brands were mentioned in 2.846 posts of blog content, whose discourse was deeply analyzed.

The absence of express reference to brand crisis suggests that fashion bloggers tend to ignore these crisis events or divert the readers' attention to the brands' more positive aspects. This result opens the discussion whether fashion bloggers downplay corporate crisis in brand equity or whether it expresses strategies of brand crisis communication through digital influencers.

Though social media may be a source of negative word-of-mouth, social media influencers have been considered important partners of corporate crisis communication in particularly challenging times. Many studies have focused on the role of social media influencers in crisis management, but there was a dearth of research on the specific case of blogs. This study contributes to the understanding of fashion bloggers as agents of brand communication, particularly regarding crisis management and their role on brand activation and positive electronic word-of-mouth, even under crisis situations. This contribution paves the way for future research on whether this is a spontaneous phenomenon or the reflection of possible partnerships between companies and fashion bloggers for the management of corporate crisis situations in the context of fashion brands.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of blogs in corporate communication and proposes general policies to help corporations effectively and ethically use blogs. Blogs are among the new communication media that are playing an increasingly important role in the corporate world. Most companies, however, are not yet taking advantage of this opportunity, nor do they manage the associated risks. We have developed a series of best practices to help companies address this issue.

We examine the evolution of the blogging phenomena and create a framework for characterizing the potential impact of blogs on the corporation. Policies are derived from data compiled from the literature, case studies, and existing proactive corporate strategies.

Most companies do not have well developed strategies for corporate blogging. As a communication medium, blogs represent a significant opportunity to further corporate marketing goals, particularly in light of the changing face of information consumption. The prevalence of blogs poses risk to corporations as a relatively uncontrolled medium.

This paper illustrates the need to develop proactive strategies for corporate blogging and provides guidelines for corporate blogging policies. Companies should integrate blogging policies into their overall corporate communication strategy as well as develop an approach for addressing the risks they impose.

This is the first paper to consider both the benefits and risks of blogging from a policy point of view.

Adopting the theory of parasocial interaction (PSI) and schema theory, this study proposes that a brand’s personalized response and brand familiarity on a corporate blog will lead to higher perceived brand similarity, credibility and blog recommendation intention.

A 2 (brand familiarity: high, low) × 3 (brand responses: none, automated and personal) experimental design was developed to test the hypothesized relationships. A total of 474 qualified data were collected using an online survey. ANOVA was utilized to test the research hypotheses.

Study results revealed that personalized messages lead to stronger perceived brand similarity, credibility and blog recommendation intention than those exposed to automated and no response. Brand familiarity also significantly influenced perceived brand similarity, brand credibility and blog recommendation intention. Further, the study analysis revealed an interesting interaction effect between brand awareness and brand response on recommendation intention.

The study provides meaningful implications and suggestions for the effective corporate blogging strategy to influence consumers’ attitudes and image toward brands and establish strong brand equity and relationships with customers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how corporate executives of companies are using blogging as a new communications channel.

The paper presents an overview of the blogging phenomenon, placing it in context of the larger growth of Web 2.0 and user‐generated content. The paper provides the reader with a primer on blogs and how they can be used effectively by executives, as well as looking at the importance of monitoring the blogosphere for what is being said by and about a company.

Over 50 corporate CEOs were found who are presently engaged in blogging. The research also identifies companies where employees have been fired for blogging and presents best practices in blogging and blog policies.

The principal limitation of the research is that as blogging is a rapidly growing and evolving area, the present results on executive blogging are accurate only for the moment. The implications of this research are that it provides the foundation for surveying not only the status of blogging by managers but also an agenda for blogging research, which might examine blogging behaviours, develop blog metrics and look toward the return on investment of blogging.

The paper reveals the benefits of managerial blogging for both the company and the individual. It also examines issues concerned with human resources, financial disclosure and policy development that have arisen because of the rise of blogging within companies.

The paper represents a timely review of a rapidly evolving social network and its associated communications technology, providing both management practitioners and academicians with insights into managing in a new age.