Inquiry discourse
This essay, will summarise how Facebook can be correlated to each and different discourses, then which discourse/s are the main business society relation can be
Traditional management teaching cannot be correlated with the Facebook management system. As said earlier, “Facebook was not created to be a company, it was built to accomplish a social mission: make the world more open and connected”. Profitability was not and still is not the major goal of this company.
To emphasize how the employee (stakeholder) cannot be compared to the traditional employee described in TMT, when asked what the average Facebook employee is like, Janelle Gale, Facebook’s vice president of human resources said, “We don’t have an average Facebook employee.”
Each Facebook employee has added value, his responsibilities ( timetable, workplace ), and they have the autonomy to organize their day-by-day venue. The company does not care about presence in the office from 9 am to 5 pm every day they care more about a cozy environment to increase the workforce productivity. It can be described as a whole new level of management strategy the opposite of TMT.
Then Facebook can be somehow related to each new discourse (CSR, SV, SD), firstly the identification of Facebook stakeholders is important to analyze which and how Facebook can be related to each new discourse.
Stakeholders
- Users/Members
- Advertisers
- Employees
- Governments
- Communities
Corporate social responsibility
Facebook supports its social media business through corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs with the major objective of fulfilling stakeholders’ interests. The stakeholders are diverse because of the global reach and nature of this social network. As one of the largest social media businesses worldwide, the company affects billions of online users as stakeholders. These online users include individuals, groups, and businesses. Facebook needs to ensure that its corporate social responsibility programs and policies are satisfactory in addressing stakeholders’ concerns. It is only this way by orienting stakeholders to the same vision that Facebook can fulfill its mission.
Shared value
About creating shared value Facebook fulfills the same objectives as this discourse, which is matching business and society needs, indeed facebook in some way is trying and achieving making the world a place more connected, it is to say they provide societal benefits through their business.
They do increase their competitiveness by simultaneously engaging in economic and social development.
On the other hand, Facebook is mainly concerned about profitable stakeholders, one of the main characteristics and limitations of this discourse.
For example, Facebook gives the least priority to communities as a stakeholder group. These stakeholders significantly affect the company by influencing the perception of users/members and advertisers. However, the company’s CSR strategy neglects to provide satisfactory support for the interests of communities as stakeholders.
Sustainable development
Mark Zuckerberg’s major concern is that every human being in the world should have access to the internet in the future, as the internet can be considered as a basic need in this modern world. Indeed his mission as a CEO is to make the world a more connected place, and Facebook can be considered as a social progress and a key tool to provide economic growth worldwide. To achieve this long-term goal Facebook is trying to match its sustainability objectives which are: to use 100% renewable to run its business by 2020; create sustainable workplaces to support local communities and finally, in 2020 reduce by 75% Facebook’s gas emissions from 2017 levels.
Facebook’s overall business social responsibility
To conclude Facebook has a few characteristics for each new discourse but can truly be identified as a match between sustainable development and shared value. Indeed Facebook wants to fulfill stakeholders’ interests but unfortunately gives priority only to the profitable stakeholders (users and advertisers), taking communities (one of Facebook’s stakeholders) less into consideration. On the other hand from a sustainable point of view, Facebook’s sustainability programs are incredibly sophisticated and their positive global impact can be measured effectively due to their precise goals shortly.