How a Swedish Company Shapes Views on Video Meetings

This case study looks at how one Swedish telecommunications company shaped employee views of video meetings. The authors describe how company messages tied video meetings to efficiency, environmental concerns, corporate social responsibility and economic gain. Through advertising, slogans, incentives and policies the company appears to have shifted attitudes toward using video meeting channels. That shift co-exists with other, conflicting understandings and meanings about these technologies, producing a complex picture of workplace communication.

What the study examined

The paper examines how a single Swedish telecommunications company frames and communicates about video meetings to its employees. It explores how company-made messages—such as advertisements, slogans, incentive programs and internal policies—work together to shape shared ideas about that form of communication.

The authors treat these shared ideas as social meanings and shared imaginings. They describe how those imaginings are deliberately connected to workplace goals and broader values.

Key findings

The work reports that company messages link video meetings to several positive themes: notions of efficiency at work, benefits for the environment, corporate social responsibility, and economic gain. This linkage appears purposeful and consistent across different internal channels.

As a result, the Company has achieved what the authors describe as a shift in employee attitudes toward using video meeting channels. That shift is not uniform: it co-exists with other understandings that are explicit, implicit, or even deliberately ignored by the organization.

• One outcome is a set of competing meanings, where the company’s preferred framing sits alongside alternative views held by employees.
• These contrasting perspectives can conflict with one another, revealing tensions in how workplace communication is imagined and practiced.

Why it matters

By detailing the different understandings and how they relate, the paper highlights the complex and purposeful nature of how communication tools are introduced and promoted inside an organization. The study suggests that shaping shared ideas about technology involves more than practical instruction; it also draws on broader values and narratives.

Understanding these processes can help readers see why employee attitudes toward new communication channels may change in some ways but remain contested in others. The account emphasizes that workplace change involves both deliberate organizational storytelling and a range of other social meanings that persist alongside it.