Is it necessary to get permission if an article is to be summarized? I would like to open a blog on my company's website in which I would create posts to talk about different research related to a particular topic. The blog would be educational, however the company is for profit. 

For example, a post could be about "does depression influence job performance?" and in this post I would talk about 3 or 4 papers that investigated this, how they did it and what conclusions they reached.

Would I need authorization for this type of use? (I'm just mentioning the facts, but I'm not quoting anything).

would I need authorization if I made a few small textual quotations?

I would logically reference the authors and the papers. But to obtain the authorizations of the companies that possess the rights of the article would be something tiresome.
As you describe what you want to do, you wouldn't need permission. You need to avoid plagiarism by citing and you need to avoid copyright infringement by not over-quoting. But your description is probably safe. 

In particular, for purposes of analysis and criticism the copyright laws (most places) are a bit more lenient than otherwise. These normally come under fair use rules. But only quote when necessary. But you can describe what the papers found and how they went about coming to their results. 

But note that the law is variable.

But if you are using papers of living authors it might make your blog more interesting if you seek comment from the authors and incorporate those comments into the posts. That would need their permission, though.