Using social media for stakeholder dialogue: findings from German, Austrian and Swiss public utilities

Within the European energy sector, German, Austrian and Swiss public utilities are confronted with radical changes. Due to low barriers to market entry, public utilities, especially in Germany and Austria, have to handle an... [ view full abstract ]

Within the European energy sector, German, Austrian and Swiss public utilities are confronted with radical changes. Due to low barriers to market entry, public utilities, especially in Germany and Austria, have to handle an increased competition. At the same time the range of products and services in all of the three countries are rising. Examples for new products and services are contracts with price guarantee or green electricity, advisory on energy saving, home automation or electric mobility. Moreover especially large utility companies with conventional power stations, such as nuclear or coal-burning power plants suffer from a bad reputation. They are seen as polluters or oligopolistic actors with a price-manipulating role (Witt 2013; Dechange/Friedrich 2013). The exit from nuclear and fossil-fuel energy is an essential sociopolitical topic. Therefore utility companies attract the public interest in particular. As stakeholder theory suggests, a dialogue between the utility companies and the different groups of stakeholders gain importance (Pedersen/Lagergaard/Sanderhoff 2013; Freeman 1984). Such dialogue might be facilitated by Facebook as various groups of stakeholders are engaged in this social network and more and more public utilities create an own Facebook presence. There still exists a research gap with respect to the analysis of the stakeholder dialogue of utility companies by using Facebook (Martin/Richter 2013a, 2013b; Martin/Grüb 2015).

This observation served as motivation for a more detailed analysis of Facebook as an instrument for stakeholder dialogue. The guiding research questions are:
(1) To which extent do the utilities focus a stakeholder dialogue on Facebook?
(2) How do the utilities contribute to such stakeholder dialogue on Facebook?

The study focuses on utility companies located in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The research methods employed are a literature review and a quantitative research design. In this context stakeholder theory (Freeman 1984) as well as agenda setting theory (DeGeorge, 1981; McCombs, 1997) is used for the theoretical background of the study. The quantitative study is based on an online-survey. In March 2015 a link to the survey was sent to 850 German, 135 Austrian and 400 Swiss utility companies. All German utilities are members of the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW) whereas all Austrian utility companies are members of the Austrian Energy Association and the Swiss utilities are members of the Association of Swiss Electricity Companies (VSE). The survey was completed by 174 utility companies. 130 of these companies are located in Germany, 19 in Austria and 25 in Switzerland. The participating utilities are primarily in public ownership.