Organizational behavior (OB) is an aspect of management that involves the study of human practices in a business setting. It also explores the relationship which exists between these individual habits and the company itself. In essence, OB primarily aims at revitalizing structural theory and developing an improving conceptualization of corporate life (Thomson, Overall, Cameron, & Low, 2018). Some of the significant components of OB are people, technology, the environment in which a firm operates, and structure. Conflict resolution is a component of organizational behavior and it refers to the process by which a mediator intervenes between two or more parties in an attempt to find a diplomatic solution to their dispute (Thomson et al., 2018). This paper explores the concept of organizational behavior in the context of real-life applications such as conflict resolution at Facebook and Apple and further discusses how effective leadership can be used in business practices.
There are various ways in which managers can solve cases of disagreement. For example, when a structure is considered the origin of a dysfunctional discord, an organizational change should act as the dispute’s solution (Lyskova, 2019). In addition, there are other scenarios where the manager will be compelled to alter the composition of a team. It applies in circumstances where the conflict is between team members, and as a result, the most convenient means of changing the arrangement of the group is separating the personalities that were colliding (Gelfand, Aycan, Erez, & Leung, 2017). In instances where the dispute is associated with various styles, preferences, and values of a minority of members, substituting them may resolve it. With organizational behavior, managers are able to understand the different causes of conflicts in a company. It is because this aspect of management adopts various theoretical models to gain insight into multiple reasons attributed to the problem (Lyskova, 2019). Therefore, it suggests some ways of handling conflicts, such as accommodation, compromise, collaboration, avoidance, and competition.
A famous example of workplace conflict is based on Facebook, a social networking company. Its latest debacle has prompted several cases of internal clashes and conversations about the future of the organization and its leadership. After a year filled with bad press, internal worries are intensifying and are now reaching the public. The uproar is surprising considering the rich history of Facebook, where its staff members have little incentive to disclose information or voice dissent outside its premises (Marino, Gini, Vieno, & Spada, 2018). Throughout its growth, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, who maintains a significant stockholder control, has proven exceptionally immune to external criticism, especially from the media, investors, and politicians. As Facebook’s stock price falls and its organizational mission of connecting the world is questioned, public pressure is rising.
Generally, workplace conflict comes with several consequences to the organization. Internally, the dispute seems to have separated Facebook into three groups. For example, there are employees devoted to Mark Zuckerberg and the Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg (Marino, Gini, Vieno, & Spada, 2018). There are also individuals deeming the current outrage as an indication of corporate disintegration and people who see the whole narrative. In an attempt to reach conflict resolution, the company’s executive management deems the current crisis as emanating from public relations problems (Marino, Gini, Vieno, & Spada, 2018). Generally, Facebook has not reached a point of resolution, as it continues to get public pressure from consumer organizations and other parties. However, the most probable means of eliminating such conflict would be for the social networking site to consider revamping its communication strategy and not making drastic changes to the workforce or platform.
Apple company is one of the leading organizations in the technology industry, offering a wide range of gadgets to customers. With the popularity of its famous product, the iPhone and MacBook, this enterprise was experiencing remarkable growth when these items were released. According to its financial report in 2007, it generated 918 million USD in sales from its retail segment (Marino, Gini, Vieno, & Spada, 2018). As such, the number of these outlets was increasing at an annual rate of 33% (Marino, Gini, Vieno, & Spada, 2018). However, the problem was this development was influencing the customers toward its stores and away from the intermediaries that sold its product, resulting in a channel conflict.
Moreover, the channel conflict intensified when the technology company decided to sell its iPhone products only at its stores, through the Internet, or through AT&T and intended to sell Macs directly to learning institutions. In an effort to reach conflict resolution, some stores were able to establish and maintain relationships with customers. While Apple was not able to sell the computer hardware from its physical shops, they were successful in selling educational accounts and continued its relationship with schools, offering training and technical guidance.
The Toyota leadership feud is another case example of conflict management. In summary, this organizational dispute involves the pioneering Toyota family and the company’s leadership group (Barron, Pereda, & Stacey, 2017). In its years of growth, this automobile firm has successfully transitioned its management style until this particular case. Both the Toyota family and its management have taken their long-standing disagreement with the public, and it also involved personal aggression. The family group headed by Akio Toyoda, the incumbent CEO, and his grandson have claimed that the firm’s quality standards have been compromised at the expense of making significant profits (Barron, Pereda, & Stacey, 2017). However, the other party, the former presidents Katsuaki Watanabe and Hiroshi Okuda, have contradicted the statement purporting that the automotive maker’s troubles are not quality-related but rather an administrative and public-relations problem orchestrated by the family.
Leadership plays a vital role in any organizational context, especially in conflict resolution. Facebook’s current challenges are examples of scenarios that require competent management approaches since the primary issue is related to personnel management. Since the social networking site is exposed to several criticisms from various governmental agencies and other consumer organizations, Mark Zuckerberg should take a different approach to build his team and strengthen its cohesiveness. In the case of Toyota’s leadership crisis, the company’s management team should stand together and settle their differences for the strategic and organizational well-being of the automobile maker.
In conclusion, organizational leadership is a vital component of running a business in the 21st century. Regardless of an enterprise’s scale of operation, instances of conflict may arise. Multinational enterprises are generally exposed to a wide range of cases that may jeopardize their brand image. Therefore, it is upon the leadership incorporate to act as a foundation which will hold the firm in such circumstances. The paper has explored different instances of conflict resolution in the context of Facebook, Toyota, and Apple. These corporations faced internal conflicts which required the expertise of their management and leadership role. As such, managers should practice the art of allowing their employees to express their concerns. In addition, vigilance and interpretation of different scenarios with an in-depth focus can help leaders understand situations.
Facebook and other social media have become widely spread all over the world. Nowadays, the usage of social media allows investors to monetize their content, using different sampling methods and targeting their advertisements. Facebook rivals the number of people watching TV, so its content extends to different age groups, which means that social media may be a convenient platform for promoting companies’ products and offers. However, data analysis of the potential customers may lead to ethical issues since social networks’ algorithms track any activity of their users.
Facebook algorithms use different sampling methods, such as stratified sampling, which allows them to divide its users into specific age groups. Saba (2014) argues that although Facebook’s main audience ranges from 45-to-64-year-old Americans, the survey results suggest marketers still view Facebook’s social network as an important channel for reaching teenagers. To engage different age groups and attract more customers, global companies target their advertisements among both TV streams and users’ Facebook feeds news to increase the reach of their ads among adults as well as teenagers.
The statistic shows that Facebook may be an ideal platform to draw customers’ attention. Facebook has 1.39 billion active users visiting the website per month, and 92% of global companies have chosen Facebook as a marketing tool, which helps Facebook reach the level of revenue of 12.7 billion in 2014 (Tran, 2017). However, analysis of the potential customers’ database may lead to some ethical issues. It has been suggested that ‘the settings are intentionally designed to increase the potential to exploit personal data for profit since information restricted from public view online has a higher sales value’ (Willis, 2017). Therefore, clients’ private data may be violated, whereas companies are seeking ways to increase the coverage of their audience. Although Facebook may be a gainful marketing tool as it is less expensive, companies still use users’ data to target their advertisements.
Facebook is a global social network owned by MetaPlatforms, headed by Mark Zuckerberg. The network began to expand in the mid-2000s, and in 2018, it had more than 2.2 billion active users (Günel et al., 2019). Currently, the company has a $562.19 billion market capitalization and is one of the most expensive companies in the world, which is easily explained by the rapid capitalization of the number of subscribers through the display of advertising content (O’Flaherty, 2022, para. 3). The company recently announced yet again changes to its privacy policy due to pressure from regulatory scrutiny and a series of allegations (Isaak & Hanna, 2018). This paper aims to discuss how Facebook is going to introduce the change process of its privacy policy.
Interestingly, the changes to the privacy policy were also linked to Apple’s privacy changes. Thus, Facebook has officially promised to include more information about the data the system collects and the data it shares, as well as the way the data is stored (Boatwright & White, 2020). Privacy update processes will occur for Facebook, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger apps and programs, but will not include WhatsApp. Most importantly, Facebook will add a control to help consumers adjust their preferences for ads. It is worth noting that the scandals surrounding the company’s user policies began with accusations of indifference to how political ads influence users and change their political decisions (Ehondor & Ogbu, 2020). As a result, Facebook faced numerous dissatisfied users and the need to review its practices.
Therefore, in response to the demands of Congress and other participants in the global socio-political process, Facebook stated that it is currently going to implement technologically real politics. More specifically, the company again disclaims responsibility for privacy but offers users to take responsibility for using the network and sign an agreement that does not include significant changes to the policy. Consequently, the movement to remove Facebook, which is often installed by default on many smartphones, has recently gained popularity among users. In this case, the user can be sure that the company does not collect data about him without his knowledge.
References
Boatwright, B. C., & White, C. (2020). Is privacy dead? Does it matter? How Facebook frames its data policy through public communication. The Journal of Public Interest Communications, 4(1), 78-83.
Ehondor, B. A., & Ogbu, S. U. (2020). Personal data protection and Facebook privacy infringements in Nigeria. Journal of Leadership, Accountability & Ethics, 17(2), 1-10.
Günel, B. S., Şahin, S., Kogias, D. G., & Patrikakis, C. Z. (2019). Privacy issues in post dissemination on Facebook. Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, 27(5), 3417-3432.
Isaak, J., & Hanna, M. J. (2018). User data privacy: Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and privacy protection. Computer, 51(8), 56-59.
Facebook company is the largest social media network globally. According to Tankovska (2021), there are about 2.7 billion monthly active Facebook users in the second quarter of the year 2020, which is a sign of a tremendously rising figure. It is also worth noting that the Facebook company has the following social media platforms: Messenger, Whatsapp, Facebook, and Instagram. Facebook measures active users as those that have logged in to their media in the last 30 days.
Online marketing gives companies the ability to reach many clients within a short time globally.
According to Shaw (2018), Social media entails a vast network of interactions within friends, families, and businesses globally.
Social media is an incredible marketing platform that can help an organization penetrate significantly into society.
Social media has surpassed the print and radio media in the passage of information. According to Forbes, by January 2018, there were about 4.02 billion internet users globally. Then the active social media users were about a 3.2billion figure that translated to 42% of the world’s population. Individuals who pay attention to advertisements run on Facebook have higher chances of buying the same products than those that do not bother.
Narrative and Exemplification Theory
Exemplification theory posits that events are an exemplification of the property of the entities (Bigsby, 2019).
Narrative theory postulates that people are generally storytellers (OSU, n.d.).
Representativeness heuristic refers to a unique type of availability whereby abstract base rates are insignificant when a client makes quantitative decisions on the event population. However, the judgment relies on more concrete exemplars accessible during a clients’ decision-making. The decision-making about a product depends mainly on the effectiveness of models when matching the information entailed in the online marketing information (APA Dictionary of Psychology, n.d.).
The availability heuristic postulates that decision-making is significantly influenced by how easy information comes to an individual mind. This heuristic is applicable when evaluating the possibility or frequency of an event taking place (Behavioral Economics, n.d.). Based on this heuristic, purchasing frequency directly relies on the quickness in which the marketing information comes to the clients’ minds.
Exemplars can be in the form of images accompanied by text serving as information during the marketing.
Exemplification Theory. Human decision-making on product information on Facebook depends on the following cognitive components: Representative and availability heuristic (Brosius, 2017).
Narrative theory. Facebook marketing can take advantage of the fact that online people will narrate to others about the products being marketed on Facebook. The decision-making of the online target audience will influence others based on the online marketing content.
Hypothesis and Research Question
RQ: Is online marketing using Facebook effective?
H: Facebook is an effective tool in the marketing of products.
Respondents paying attention to Facebook adverts= 61%.
Respondents that placed their order following persuasive Facebook advertisement=31%.
For this research, Facebook marketing entails the scenario where a company uses Facebook or Facebook Lite applications, excluding Instagram, Whatsapp, and Messenger, in creating awareness to the potential clients.
Gender of Respondents
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
Male
51
51.0
51.0
51.0
Female
49
49.0
49.0
100.0
Total
100
100.0
100.0
Respondents that Paid Attention To Facebook Advertisements
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
Yes
61
61.0
61.0
61.0
No
39
39.0
39.0
100.0
Total
100
100.0
100.0
Race of Respondents
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
White/Caucasian
15
15.0
15.0
15.0
Black/African American
24
24.0
24.0
39.0
American Indian
18
18.0
18.0
57.0
Latino/Hispanic
15
15.0
15.0
72.0
Asian
12
12.0
12.0
84.0
Pacific Islander/Hawaiian
16
16.0
16.0
100.0
Total
100
100.0
100.0
Respondents that had previously Bought From Facebook Advertisement
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
Yes
31
31.0
31.0
31.0
No
69
69.0
69.0
100.0
Total
100
100.0
100.0
RQ: Is online marketing using Facebook effective?
Analysis of Variance of Buying from Facebook Advertisements
Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Between Groups
5.170
1
5.170
31.235
.000
Within Groups
16.220
98
.166
Total
21.390
99
Descriptive Statistics
N
Minimum
Maximum
Mean
Std. Deviation
Variance
PaidAttentionToFBAds
100
1.00
2.00
1.3900
.49021
.240
BoughtFromFBAd
100
1.00
2.00
1.6900
.46482
.216
Valid N (listwise)
100
Respondents that paid attention to Facebook advertisements (M=1.39, SD=0.49)
Respondents that bought products from Facebook advertisements (M=1.69, SD=0.46)
Discussion
Respondents that paid more attention to advertisements being run on
Facebook had high chances of buying the products.
Some Facebook users are opposed to buying goods online, fearing being inconvenienced.
Male and female Facebook users are 1.51 and 1.19 billion globally.
Limitations of Study
The study only focused on Facebook Lite and web users.
There were not many respondents considered during the study
Future Directions
There is a need for further studies on what makes some clients not bothered with online advertisements and still place their orders online.
There is a need to compare the impact of gender, race, and age on purchasing goods marketed on Facebook.
References
APA Dictionary of Psychology (n.d). Representativeness heuristic. Web.
Appel, G., Grewal, L., Hadi, R., & Stephen, A. T. (2020). The future of social media in marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 48(1), 79-95. Web.
Bigsby, E., Bigman, C. A., & Martinez Gonzalez, A. (2019). Exemplification theory: a review and meta-analysis of exemplar messages. Annals of the International CommunicationAssociation, 43(4), 273-296. Web.
Brosius, H. B., & Peter, C. (2017). Exemplification theory. The international encyclopedia of mediaeffects, 1-9. Brown, D. (2020). Advantages and disadvantages of online shopping. Spoolah. Web.
Cakebread, C. (2017). To keep its revenue growing, Facebook needs to look outside the US. Insider. Web.
Jilcott, S. B., Ng, S. W., Blitstein, J. L., Gustafson, A., Kelley, C. J., Pandya, S., & Weismiller, H. (2020). Perceived advantages and disadvantages of online grocery shopping among special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children (WIC) participants in Eastern North Carolina. Current developments in nutrition, 4(5), 1-7. Web.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, began to code at the age of 11, and a few years later, he created ZuckNet messenger. Still in school, he was invited to work in Microsoft and AOL. In 2002 Mark was admitted to Harvard; there, he first developed the Facemash, which allowed fellow students to evaluate each other’s attractiveness and create ratings (Boyd, 2019). In February 2004, Zuckerberg released TheFacebook platform, which did not differ much from the modern version. During the first month, 50% of Harvard students registered there.
In June 2004, Mark moved his office to Palo Alto and received a $500,000 investment from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel (Boyd, 2019). By the end of the year, Zuckerberg opened membership for all students in the United States and Canada. In May 2005, the company gained $12.7 million from Accel and $1 million from Jim Breyer (Boyd, 2019). Mark decided to remove an article from the name, bought the facebook.com domain, and expanded the audience with high school students and employees of Microsoft and Apple (Boyd, 2019). Finally, Zuckerberg left Harvard, officially becoming the CEO of the company, and the Facebook take-off curve got a vertical slope.
Mind-Blowing Market Growth
In December 2005, Australian and New Zealand universities and high schools in the UK, Ireland, and Mexico gained access to the platform. Then, in September 2006, the platform became open to everyone. The number of participants was growing exponentially from 12 million users in December 2006 to 20 million in April 2007 and 30 million in July 2007 (Boyd, 2019). The company started to develop its strengths associated with technology.
In May 2007, Facebook released the Marketplace and Application Developer tools. After 100,000 companies registered on the site, Facebook launched Pages for Business, analyzing the possible increase in advertising revenue (Boyd, 2019). Facebook Chat was released in April 2008, and then appeared Facebook Wall, People You May Know, and Facebook Connect features.
The number of users was growing steadily until, in December 2009, Facebook became the most popular social platform in the world, with 350 million registered users and 132 million unique monthly users (Boyd, 2019). In 2010 additional features were developed, particularly ‘likes’ under the comments. The number of registered users reached 500 million, and Facebook was valued at $41 billion, becoming the third-largest web company in the United States after Google and Amazon (Boyd, 2019). In July 2011, the number of page views reached 1 trillion. Also, this year facebook.com became the second most visited website in the USA.
Fake News and Cheating Policy
In April 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion and then came up with an Initial public offering (IPO). The company was valued at $104 billion, $38 per share (Boyd, 2019). The IPO attracted $161 million in investments; however, after the process against underwriters, stocks lost 60% of the value in a month, and investors lost $40 billion (Boyd, 2019). The underwriters were accused of secretly lowering revenue estimates, and the company was charged with an IPO pump and dump circuit. Nonetheless, in October 2012, the number of users exceeded 1 billion.
Thus, Facebook became the whale of the world market and started to influence processes in politics and society. From 2014 to 2018, Facebook has several times been at the center of serious scandals. The first was associated with the accounts promoting violence; then, Russia’s interference in US elections in 2016 was recognized (Boyd, 2019). In March 2018, the Cambridge Analytics scandal erupted – “This Is Your Digital Life” application stole data from 87 million Facebook users to support the political campaigns of Ted Cruise, Donald Trump, and Brexit (Boyd, 2019). Zuckerberg made a move and blocked 1.3 billion fake accounts.
In December 2018, Facebook was accused of illegally transferring user data to Netflix and Spotify for advertising purposes. Zuckerberg spoke to Congress twice – in September 2017 and May 2018. He promised to strengthen the data privacy policy and take control of the illegal use of the platform by third parties, but Congress recognized these measures as insufficient (Sraders, 2020). The scandals haunted Zuckerberg, but it looks like Mark assumes he does not have to influence the social processes.
Economics, Technology and New Opportunities
Meanwhile, the company continued to grow in economic performance and technology development. In the first three months of 2014, 1 billion users entered the platform from a smartphone. In February 2014, Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion to gain access to younger and foreign users of the application, and in March – acquired Oculus VR (Boyd, 2019). By September, Facebook had a market capitalization of $200 billion, and profit in the fourth quarter of 2014 was $701 million, 34% more than the previous year (Boyd, 2019).
In January 2015, Facebook launched a feature that allowed users to report fake news. Also, Facebook’s reactions feature ‘love’, ‘hate’, ‘haha’, ‘disgust’, ‘sad’, or ‘wow’ was released. In July, the number of users reached 1.49 billion, or half the world’s Internet users. Also, it turned out that 63% of Americans prefer to read the news on Facebook (Boyd, 2019). Instant Articles, Calls in Messenger, Facebook Live, and 360-video were released.
In 2016, Facebook announced 1.5 billion daily users, 3 million advertisers. The company also changed priority in the news feed in favor of friends and relatives and launched the Workplace. It gained $10 billion in revenue and 1.86 billion monthly users (Boyd, 2019). In 2017, the Facebook Journalism Project was launched, and new features appeared to allow access to food and shelter in emergency situations, messenger reactions were added, and new tools to prevent suicides were developed. Facebook Spaces for VR and tools to combat online harassment were also released this year. The company received $15.9 billion in profit, 56% more than in 2016 (Boyd, 2019). In January 2018, news from friends and relatives received an even higher priority to stimulate companies and organizations to buy advertising.
In June, a report was published according to which only 51% of teens used Facebook, preferring Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube. The Facebook Watch video-service and Facebook.gg game streaming arena was launched. The 2018 second-quarter earnings report scared the market, but the balance was quickly restored. In December 2019, revenue amounted to $21 billion, showing an increase of 24% compared to 2018 (“Financials Facebook Inc.”, 2019). Also, the Facebook Spaces was closed to give a path for the new Horizon tool.
Threats to Business
Nothing could bring down the focus of Zuckerberg, who always perceived his company as a business project, not the social one. Filling out the “Form 10-K”, the company listed the actual threats to the business (US Securities and Exchange Commission, 2019). The most significant are risks associated with failure to retain existing users or add new, generating revenue from advertising, the dependence of advertising revenue on signals from external websites (US Securities and Exchange Commission, 2019).
Reliance on mobile operating systems, competition-related threats, and government restrictions were mentioned as well (US Securities and Exchange Commission, 2019). According to official data, as of December 31, 2019, the company has 44,942 employees in 70 cities around the world (US Securities and Exchange Commission, 2019). Thus, Facebook’s success contributes to the well-being of many people.
US Securities and Exchange Commission. (2019). Facebook Inc.: Annual report pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the securities exchange act of 1934 for the fiscal year ended 2019. Washington, DC 20549.
The business strategy of Facebook in changing external and competitive environments
Facebook has grown tremendously in the last few years. Facebook started as a small website for students to share photos. However, the company is now one of the largest social media network with over one billion users. This growth can be attributed to the strategic decisions that Mark Zuckerberg made as the company’s CEO. The company also enjoyed huge revenue in 2011. The company had revenue of $3.71 billion up from $1.97 in 2010 (Albanesius, 2012).
Despite all this, the company may well be nearing the end of its product life cycle. There are four different developmental stages in a product’s lifestyle. In the introductory stage, which is the first one, growth is stagnant, and profits are minimal as the product is on trial. The product, if successful, proceeds to the growth stage. In this stage, the product expands into new markets because the product has been accepted.
The third stage is the maturity cycle where Facebook currently is. In this stage, there are stable prices and profits. It has become the norm for everyone to have an account on Facebook, which means growth stage has been passed. The last stage is usually the decline stage where sales and profits decrease. Although there is yet to be developed a technology that will directly kick Facebook out of business, several factors threaten the company’s stability. (Matt, [email protected], & USA, n.d.).
There has been a big exit from Facebook especially in the U.S, Canada, and European markets. The company also introduced its IPO in May. The Facebook shares have performed dismally going below by as much as 40% since. Another factor is the rise in the use of Twitter. Although the micro blogging site uses a different technology, it could very well compete with Facebook for advertisements. As such, to keep stable in this industry, Facebook must adopt an appropriate business strategy (Champoux, Durgee & McGlynn 2012).
At its start, Facebook’s strategy was aimed at getting as many users as possible, especially in the U.S and Canada. The company embarked on a charm offensive and managed to lure as many campus students as there were. This strategy was implemented by enhancing direct collaboration with colleges. Previously, college administrators had a negative opinion about Facebook and saw it as a nuisance. The company set a target to market itself to college administrators (Sarachan, & Reinson 2011).
The company would provide organizational services, which included class registration, promotion of clubs and activities. With the cooperation and support from the colleges, the company was able to bring in new users, for instance, by advising freshmen to check the school Facebook groups (Helvie-Mason 2011).
Students will thus be compelled to open accounts. The company will then offer many services to keep these customers dedicated to the website. Another strategy involved balancing the entry of new users with advertisement.
College students provide a strategic advertisement market for other colleges, books, and even music. This often involved sending messages to a user and informing them of their friends who have, say, downloaded music at a certain music website. Given the peer pressure effect, most users would follow suit thus providing the company with click-through rates (Haigh, Brubaker, & Whiteside, 2013).
With the change in client numbers, the company has reviewed these strategies as they are outdated. The user numbers have nearly hit the limit since there can only be so many users in the world. The company now has set new strategies to keep up with the changes in the industry. Facebook plans to expand to global users.
It is important to note that, although the company is immensely popular in the U.S and Canada, there exist huge market gaps in countries such Japan, Germany, Brazil, Russia, South Korea and many African countries. Facebook has been unable to enter the Chinese market, which is heavily dominated by heavy players among them the SINA Corporation and RenREN (McAndrew & Jeong, 2012).
The company is also considering developing social products so as to maximize engagement. Through innovation, the company hopes to enhance communal engagement by providing interactive solutions. However, experience has shown that customers are often dissatisfied and angry with compulsory upgrades.
A move to include users into more interactive communities should be carried out with utmost care to develop a more engaging technology for the mobile user. The mobile market is often said to be most factor in the company’s growth. The fact that the company will often be required to expand into this market portends an uncertain future. The screen is smaller thus limiting the level of graphics that can fit (Mauri, Cipresso, Balgera, Villamira & Riva, 2011).
The market has also begun getting many entrants who could inconvenience the company. Given the money that the company has recently acquired through the IPO, the company intends to buy some of the companies that currently have a substantial stake in the mobile technology industry. However, the biggest threat will be from Google.
In this case, Google may emerge to hold a major stake in the industry through its Google+ social network (Richmond, Rochefort, & Hitch 2011). The company also plans to boost efforts to become the leading developer of Facebook apps. If the company can invite developers to make its apps, users will most likely adopt them more easily than they will with respect to apps from other developers. However, this market will be difficult to win given that most users may ignore these suggestions.
Another strategy is for the company to increase products for both users and advertisers. Given the fact that the company has a very huge market by virtue of the high number of users- users who are not charged anything, companies may take advantage by posting adverts through Facebook. Such a move should be done subtly to avoid hindering the customer’s experience (Shiri, 2009).
From the discussion, it is clear that Facebook started with clear strategies that have worked well to give it the success it currently enjoys. However, with the change in the market environment, the company needs and continues to adapt new strategies. Each strategy has its merits and demerits as discussed in the paper.
The implications of Facebook’s aggressive growth strategy to the organizational culture
All organizations have a culture. There are several organizational cultures one can use to analyze organizational culture. There exist four types of culture in organizations. They include the power culture, task culture, person culture, and the role culture. Some organizations retain power in the hands of only a few people who make decisions. They are privy to the privileges of the organization.
The same individuals delegate duties to the rest of the workforce. In this case, the subordinates have no choice but to comply with the given instructions. There is a likelihood of the managers to favor certain individual. This can lead to a rebellion by the rest of the workforce.
The second type of culture is the task culture. Here, the organization has teams or several groups formed to attain set goals or to solve certain problems. These small groups of about five people are normally comprised of individuals with common goals or specializations who will contribute equally to achieve set goals (Norton, 1994).
The person’s culture is the third type in Charles Handy’s model. In this model, individuals care more about their interests and not the company’s interest (Condon & Laberis, 1996). Employees see the organization as a means to get money and rarely feel attached to the organization and are always disloyal to the management and decision made is not in favor of the organization. There is no need to mention that such an organization performs dismally and is fast to collapse.
The role culture is the fourth culture in Charles Handy’s model. It involves each employee being delegated roles and duties that best suits the employee’s specialization, education, interest and expertise. Such a scenario allows employees to identify the roles and areas where they can perform best (McAndrew & Jeong, 2012). The employees should be ready to accept the challenges associated with the selected areas of work. This means that employees have the power and freedom that comes with responsibilities (Bailey, 2007).
With its growth, Facebook has changed some of its cultures and practices to be in tandem with the growth, as well as to maintain the corporate culture. When he started the company, Mark Zuckerberg set an open culture with no hierarchies. The founder sets several structures that were intended to make the company a fun place to work (Brandenburg, 2008).
Such an environment would attract the best talent in the industry. The company has since then grown from a small company to a global company with thousands of employees. It also has had to change its corporate structure and culture to give it a more corporate image (DUMENCO, 2012).
Charles Handy’s model provides an appropriate model to analyze the culture at Facebook. Facebook provides a combination of the role culture and task culture as discussed by Charles Handy. On role culture, the company provides a great experience for the worker, with an internal culture of openness and cooperation. Purkayasha and The company offered many opportunities for people who wanted to be innovative, as well as explorative.
This independence separates it from the pack. Employees are left uninterrupted by office politics, and meddlesome management. The company has no cubicles as employees share desks. Even the management share desks as did Mark Zuckerberg although they used the conferences for meetings. When the company shifted to California, they created a relaxed environment even providing a basketball court which had graffiti paintings. Management was readily available and easy to approach.
Employees were provided with good foods, including three meals a day and snacks at all times. Food was ranked as one of the most attractive perks. The company was copying Google’s style as it even hired one of Google’s chefs. The company also provided special meals during sessions that required the company’s programmers to work all night (Ferris, 2012).
On task culture, they have a culture based on small teams that work together developing innovative product. The company recruits based on the right attitude and not necessarily the best skills. The hiring practices at Facebook are skewed in favor of the cultural values set by the company. The company has very few vice presidents so that all employees feel equal.
At the start of 2008, the company the engineering team at Facebook started the engineering boot camp program. This was meant to instill its culture and values to recruits. Under this program, each recruit would go through an intensive six month program that involved working with a mentor and a cross team with hands on problem solving. The purpose of this learning from mentors and peers was geared towards establishing a task culture as it helped the learner to connect across in the organization.
As the company growth went on, there was a need to open new offices. By the year 2011, the company had over 20 offices across the globe. This was a tricky moment as the company needed to maintain the culture similar to the one at the headquarters (Haigh, Brubaker & Whiteside 2013).
In an effort to inculcate its culture in the new offices, the company would select some of the company’s top employees who were experienced in the running and culture of Facebook. They were then delegated to go open, set and establish the new offices for a certain period. These teams were referred to as the Landing teams (Vara & Delaney, 2007).
However, the company did not have it easy at all times. Some employees were unhappy with the long happy hours. Others complained the pay was not as good as it should have been. A plan to cancel a monthly stipend for employees living close to the company headquarters was met with a lot of hostility.
However, the company explained the plan was a measure to cut costs in the face of rising hardware costs. Overall, the company has been able to maintain a balance between its intense growth and preservation of the corporate culture. It is one of the best companied to work for in the world which has attracted the best talents and best results in terms of user satisfaction (Aydin, 2012).
Strategic recommendations to Facebook to enhance its future business success
Strategic planning is the process by which an organization plans to achieve its mission (Schraeder 2002). For Facebook to continue being the epitome of business success it has become, the company should adapt several strategies that will help it realize its goals. (Durvasula, Lysonski and Mehta, 2006) suggested some driving forces that could help evaluate the prospects of any sector in terms of competitive positioning.
The five Porter forces could be ideal in analyzing competitive forces in whichever industry, including the industry in which Facebook operates. The model strives to address key strategic issues in a general approach.
The forces discussed are degree of rivalry, buyer’s power, threat of substitutes, supplier’s power, and the threat of new entrants. Competition among rival firms has the risk of driving profits to zero. Competition, however, is not perfect (‘Competition on the line’ 2004).
In the social media industry, a large market share is held by the largest companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter (Curran, Morrison, & Mc Cauley 2012) The industry has a high concentration ratio. The industry is never quite as each firm strives to gain advantage over the other. Facebook can consider adopting several strategies to gain competitive advantage, which includes product differentiation, establishing good relations with users as well as the suppliers in the industry (Ramarapu & Lado 1995).
As Facebook has grown, the competition from Google has become intense (Dumenco 2011).The Google network has 90 million users. It is also has another 350 million users on Gmail not to mention the quarter billion users on Android devices. Most of the revenue Google gains are from advertisers just like Facebook. Unlike Facebook, Google has many products as mentioned here. This poses the threat of Facebook losing users to Google.
The threat of substitutes according to porter’s model refers to services from the other industry, or rather from outside the industry. Facebook is a social networking site whose purpose is to allow users to stay connected with friends. The emergence of new service application such as WhatsApp, Skype, and iMessage, will pose a threat. WhatsApp and iMessage are short messaging messages that are internet based (Poeter 2012).
There are other threats such as Video calling services which include Skype and Google Hangout. By allowing video communication via the mobile telephone and PCs, they can attract users from Facebook. To counter these challenges, Facebook should consider introducing more messaging apps as well as a partner with Skype to produce video calls for its users.
As companies face competition from peers, they also face another threat from new firms (Shewmake 2000). As profits rise, additional firms are bound to enter the market given that the market, in theory, is free-entry, free-exit. In the real world, however, there are barriers to entry and high profits are inhibited. The social networking industry has low entry barriers and appears as potentially profitable.
With a few servers and a number of programmers, one can produce a networking site (Pearson & O’Connell 2011). These inputs are readily available with a small investment. Mobile journal path poses a threat to Facebook. Two months in the industry, the site has gained nearly two million users. However, unlike Facebook that is available on several platforms, the mobile journal path is limited to smart phones.
The company should boost the Facebook platform app which allows developers to make apps for Facebook. Such developers are unlikely to think of introducing their own apps that can rival Facebook. The company should also adopt a strategy of buying some of the small companies attempting to break into the market.
The bargaining power of customers is the power that clients command in the buying process of services or products within an industry. When the buyer has strong power, such an industry is referred to as many suppliers- one buyer industry. Facebook does not exist in such an industry. Their customer is the advertiser. Revenue from advertising accounts for more than 90% of the total revenue.
Given the number of users that the company boasts of, customer bargain power is very low. Thus, the company has been able to increase the average ad price. However, if the company continues to lose users, the customer bargaining power will increase. The best strategy to mitigate this risk is for the company to create new innovative applications to create a better user experience.
As discussed, it would be prudent for the company to market itself in new markets to fill the gaps in a loss of users in the traditional markets. Suppliers bargaining power is the fifth factor that Porter discusses. All industries have their suppliers; there exists a buyer-supplier relationship in every industry Kim, Bojanic, & Warnick, 2009).
However, in the service center in which Facebook operates, there are no direct suppliers. While the company continues to enjoy the power over suppliers, there are several factors that threaten this power. The loss of customers in traditional markets, as well as the inability to reach new markets is one major threat.
The loss of users to other platforms by competitors like Google is another threat However, the old users cannot easily join other network high leverages the company’s supplier power. The supplier power is thus average.
The potential of Facebook to add value to a small non-profit social enterprise
Facebook allows organizations to create profiles and become active users and with nearly a billion users on Facebook. Organizations, both profit and non-profit, have adapted these strategies into their public relations campaigns. Profit organizations may choose to launch new products in order to boost sales. On the other hand, non-profit organizations have been slow to take advantage of this medium. (Waters, Burnett, Lamm, & Lucas 2009).
Undertook a study to determine how nonprofit organizations faired in the use of Facebook. They sampled a total of 275 random cases. They found out that, on the question of disclosure of information, most organizations listed the administrators on their Facebook profiles. Their study also found out that organizations that are nonprofit have not adapted Facebook applications.
The study had concluded that social networking sites were a new way of doing things. This was meant to make public relations experts review their approaches in how they conduct their campaigns. The organizations were found to be open in the disclosure of their Facebook profiles. However, the organizations failed to use the Facebook platforms to inform and engage the public of their activities. Unlike other social networks like Twitter, Muralidharan, Rasmussen, Patterson, & Shin 2011).
Noted that Facebook provides the best platform to tell a story. Most non-profit organizations often need to tell stories. This provides a platform for followers to share stories, photos, and experiences. To be successful in the use of social media, one must have an understanding of the platform and the technology behind social media. In this era of freedom and choice, noted that people want you to communicate to them from where they are.
Most people are clearly on Facebook. Although some people are on email, they do not like spam and emails targeted for a mass audience. On the other hand, Facebook is ideal in communicating with mass audiences (Napoli 2010)
An organization that limits its channels to the traditional media will lose out. Using many channels such as Facebook can increase the awareness of one’s company. (Sun & Wu 2012)noted the benefits that accrue to a nonprofit organization using social media. It is an opportunity to learn what your supporters are saying about the organization. It is a means to get traffic to your website, it may also help traffic into your donation pages.
Social media helps in optimizing your organization on search engines through key word content. The social media platform provides an avenue for the most ardent supporters to promote the organization to their colleagues. It also provides an opportunity to create networks in the grassroots and even react to happenings that otherwise would have been unforeseen. Interacting on social media also intimates the organization to the public. This will further build trust and loyalty from supporters.
Before an organization can start using Facebook, several factors should be considered. In this case, one should ensure that the persons hired to manage the organization’s profile are trained and are familiar with the use of Facebook. It is also important to consult the organization’s stakeholders and then follow opinion shapers to understand the trends in the industry.
The organization should then identify areas where to focus. Some of the areas that a charitable organization can focus on through Facebook include: listening, raise funds, sharing content, engaging with supporters, driving action, and raising funds (Wilbert, 2008)Listening is a key area that any successful charitable organization must focus. Such an exercise is helpful in informing the staff and enhancing the management on how to deal with misconceptions about the organization.
The company can best listen by encouraging its supporters to express their opinion on Facebook comments. They can then monitor the comments and likes to draw necessary conclusions. The other way is by providing valuable content. (Ahmed, Sullivan, Schneiders, & Mccrory 2010) noted that most people are engaging on Facebook because they hope to become more informed.
Take advantage and post information to your supporters. For example, an organization dealing with responding to disaster can post information on how people can help, say by volunteering. The other way a charitable organization can use Facebook is to engage their supporters.
Facebook has some intimacy associated with it and engaging these supporters helps to bring out that intimacy between the organization and its supporter (Tagtmeier, 2010). For example, you can respond to comments posted on your wall or even upload photos or videos of events and tell your supporters to like them.
You can also provide “contact us on Facebook” buttons on the website. In addition, you can also provide links to your other social media platforms or websites (John, Cheema, & Byrne 2012). For example, you can tell your supporters on Facebook to also follow you on Twitter(Flandez 2011). Contact opinion leaders who are in the same line of work you do. For instance, you could tell a popular philanthropist like your page or to ask his/her fans to like your page
A charitable organization may consider using Facebook to drive action or raise awareness. The organization may ask supporters to provide their information that can aid in reaching them. opined that this information can be used in the future communications to convert these contacts into donors. Set up events on Facebook and provide the option of responding.
You could also use Facebook to acquire emails of people who have joined the organization’s groups. The organizations may also start pages for each campaign which would encourage people to support the organization’s efforts (Jakab 2012).
A nonprofit or a charity organization relies on donations for funding. Facebook provides a new channel to raise these funds. For example, one may integrate the Facebook profile of the charitable organization. Here, you can create widgets and direct users to your page.
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What is case appears to be the major strengths and weaknesses for companies advertising through Facebook?
Having become a platform frequently employed for advertisement, Facebook has adapted and now allows five different strategies for the placement of marketing content. In particular, on Facebook, advertisements may appear in five different areas—as postings within the major newsfeed, on the right side (on the user’s desktop newsfeed), on the left side (ads that are common to all users regardless of the pages they view), on the mobile applications, and the main news feed of the mobile Facebook app (Bhele).
Strengths
Thus, based on the information provided in the case study, the primary advantage of using Facebook for advertising is the exclusive contact with the target audiences based on specific aspects of the consumer segment of interest (Hof 64). Second, advertising via Facebook is beneficial in terms of its cost. To be more precise, it is very cheap to place and maintain marketing content on this social network; in fact, some forms of advertising powered by Facebook are free. However, the cost of other types of ads may vary depending on the purpose of the marketing content.
Moreover, the platform provides such options as friends’ recommendations that help the marketing content and information to travel to the users who would be the most interested and producing the maximal effect. Besides, it is known that consumers tend to trust the opinions of their friends and relatives more than any other source. By enabling people to share marketing information, Facebook also benefits the companies behind the marketing campaigns, contributing to the reliability of their content and the users’ interest in that specific type of content.
One more advantage is the extensive reach of Facebook as it can run on users’ smartphones as well as their computers. Moreover, it can support different forms of marketing content, such as written advertisements, pictures and posters, and videos (Bhele).
Weaknesses
As mentioned in the case study, one of the major concerns that bother users when it comes to advertising via Facebook has to do with issues of confidentiality and privacy; the social network allows marketers to use individuals’ data for product and service promotion. Using Facebook to advertise their products, marketers can track any user’s data, including the individual’s location at any time, interests, and likes, to name a few examples. In that way, Facebook tends to gather and monetize the personal information of its users without their consent or knowledge. Besides, marketing strategies on Facebook are based on the tactics of seeding and the transformation of the members of the general public into facilitators of the marketing content as they share and like various posts, thus making content visible to more people and targeting specifically the part of the population interested in a particular kind of content.
Also, one more disadvantage of the commercial use of social marketing is that once an advertisement is placed, its managers have very little control over where it is shown as well as its association with other kinds of content. Hence, the desired media presence of different companies is threatened by a set of potential dangers and accidents that may produce an adverse effect on their brand reputation and awareness. Marketing is a sphere of knowledge where information communicated to consumers is very carefully selected and organized to achieve the desired effects and results. Social marketing prevents advertisers from monitoring where their content ends up and in what context it is seen by social network users.
Marketing, in the age of social media, has significant value for marketers. However, there appear to be significant challenges that Facebook’s management has faced. Identify and critically assess these challenges.
Today, when the use of social media and communication technologies is almost ubiquitous in most of the developed as well as many developing countries, the largest social media platforms are regularly employed for marketing and advertisement. Facebook is one of the biggest and most popular social networks in the world. As a result, it serves as a source of many different kinds of advertisement employed by various companies. One of the primary benefits of this social platform that is appreciated by marketers is the fact that it enables them to reach out to particular individuals and groups within the population-based on sets of specific characteristics such as location, gender, age, health status, interests, worldview, and preferences (Bhele). Besides, placing advertisements and running marketing campaigns on social networks allow the managers of these campaigns to monitor their progress and success and adjust the instruments used for the product and service promotion by the reaction of the general public (Bhele).
The collection of personal data to employ it as the findings of a marketing research effort and an instrument to power a company’s future marketing campaigns does not translate well to the users, who feel violated and watched by the network even as it encourages them to share as much private information as possible. In 2007, Facebook officials decided to launch a new beacon system that would track users’ activities, planning to use this information to place targeted advertisements; this action caused a massive backlash on the part of the general public. In practical terms, individual users’ activities could be shown to their friends on Facebook, a violation of their privacy. The Facebook authorities were forced to change their strategy and find new ways to foster social marketing without causing a groundswell of social dissatisfaction.
Further, the team of professionals responsible for the development of social marketing tools and techniques available on Facebook came up with another innovative strategy—the ‘Like’ button, with its capacity to be placed on any website or application that wanted it for the users to be able to communicate the content they liked on Facebook. This innovative strategy was extremely beneficial for multiple brands and companies; however, the disadvantage for Facebook itself was the fact that the button was free. In other words, the team of developers did not have a share in the overall monetary success of the companies whose brands and products were promoted with the help of the ‘Like’ button.
In the case study, it is emphasized that, apart from these challenges, the major struggle for Facebook is the development of new forms and types of social advertising that could be placed on the platform and monetized. It is important to mention that regardless of the form of advertisement and its purpose, Facebook will always have to face privacy concerns and handle the public response to the mechanisms employed by the network to target content and distribute it to the users. Making people the major driving force for marketing content is the only strategy that will allow Facebook management to avoid accusations of the abuse of private user information.
If you were a marketing executive for Facebook, propose two to three new kind of advertising that can be appealing to both users and marketers.
The contemporary world is oriented to favor an individualistic worldview where the highest value is attributed to services and products designed specifically to satisfy the unique tastes and needs of each consumer. Customized and personalized items have very high levels of popularity as marketable products. This means that since the major strategy of the advertising team on Facebook is to engage the social network’s users in the process of viewing and sharing the application’s marketing content, it is important to achieve a higher level of personalization. User experience is the key to attracting masses willing to participate. Thus it follows, first of all, that users could be provided with the ability to modify and control the marketing content that is shown to them, as well as how it is provided and in what form.
This approach to content sharing and marketing could be beneficial for both the advertisers and the users because the latter would receive an ultimately relevant flow of marketing information that would include only the items and services that interest the users the most; at the same time, the advertisers would have an opportunity to benefit from the most focused allocation of their marketing content, thus creating cost-effective and practical targeting of the consumer segments that are the most likely to purchase the promoted products and services. The concept of this form of marketing is limiting the stream of content in the newsfeed not only according to the activities of the individual users and the information they like and share but also based on their personal preferences that they would purposely communicate to receive the most interesting content. Also, the users could be able to choose the forms of advertisements that they find the most effective: video, written text, banners and posters, gifs, podcasts, and reviews, among others.
The second form of advertisement that could be employed by Facebook in the future is based on the use of augmented and virtual reality. This technology is relatively new, and it is only gaining popularity. However, it is likely to become more developed within the next few years and set to occupy one of the largest niches in the market, creating a new tool for user-oriented and personalized advertisement. The proposed form of marketing works similarly to many helpful mobile applications that find and show various organizations and businesses located nearby. It could add specialized content visible to the users of the augmented reality devices and applications, helping them find different places, participate in discount offers, and communicate the information they find interesting or useful to their friends on Facebook. This type of advertisement would benefit the consumers using raising their awareness of the new offerings from businesses and also help the firms and brands improve their visibility. Facebook could launch an application specialized for AR and VR that could enable users to view advertisements in real life (for example, while shopping at a department store or having lunch at a restaurant). The users would only need to request the AR ads and then choose the ones they would prefer to see and the ones that they would want to be hidden or minimized. This form of advertisement could replace banners and billboards, moving advertisement to the digital space and making it both more ubiquitous and more flexible for the target audiences.
By default, society views leaders as problem solvers, innovators, and individuals who take responsibility for their actions and those of their employees regardless of whether the consequences are either good or bad. Ethical leadership is a construct of leadership that is directed by virtuous behavior and moral development (Othman & Rahman, 2014). Therefore, ethical leaders tend to uphold a more universal standard of moral conduct. Ethical leadership usually presents itself in times of corporate scandals where the company’s stakeholders and the public question the morals of the managers. In today’s transparent social-media-driven world, high profile executives are occasionally summoned to explain their morals in how they do business. A recent scenario is the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal in which the Founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, was summoned to explain the data breach. This paper aims to examine how Mark Zuckerberg portrayed his ethical leadership skills in the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
Description of the situation
Will technology firms ever take ethics seriously? The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal is the largest public relations crisis that Facebook has faced (Fuller, 2018). It all began in 2014 when Alexander Kogan, a University of Cambridge researcher, developed an application known as “thisisyourdigitallife.” It is estimated that about 270, 000 Facebook users downloaded the application and consequentially gave away their profile details including that of their Facebook friends, therefore, Kogan had access to the details of 50 million people (Graham-Harrison & Cadwalladr, 2018). Kogan shared this information with Cambridge Analytica, a data mining and political strategy company without the users’ knowledge. The idea of Cambridge Analytica was to glean people’s Facebook likes so that it could have a better understanding of their personality (hobbies, comments, gender, sexual orientation, political views, and religion), thereby more effectively target political advertising. The concept used can be referred to as psychographic profiling (Fuller, 2018). The psychographic data obtained from the analyses was later integrated into Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
In 2015, Christopher Wylie, a whistleblower, reported and submitted evidence of the scheme to the New York Times and the Guardian (Graham-Harrison & Cadwallad, 2018). After the scandal was publicized, Facebook approached Alexander Kogan and Cambridge Analytica and requested that they delete the information they had acquired improperly. However, the parties never deleted this information and Facebook never bothered to follow up to ascertain whether they had deleted it. Therefore, this reflects how Facebook made it simple for data developers like Kogan to be granted access to private user profile data and even share it. Moreover, by 2018, Facebook had still never informed people on the breach regardless of it being aware that Cambridge Analytica had had this information for more than two years. As a result, Facebook violated several principles of technology ethics, which primarily includes breaking the terms and conditions it has with its users.
Background of the ethical problem
Facebook users prefer signing into other websites and applications using the Facebook login tool rather than the websites’ or applications’ independent registration method. This is because the Facebook option is less cumbersome. What remains unknown to the users is that by using the Facebook login option, they give up some of their personal information such as religion, political preferences, comments, emails, and locations, to these other websites. In 2014, a University of Cambridge researcher created an application, “Thisisyourdigitallife”, in which Facebook’s Application Programme Interface (API) lets developers similar to Kogan access user profiles (Graham-Harrison & Cadwalladr, 2018). It mined the Facebook profile data of its registered users thereby gathering information of more than 50 million Facebook users. At this time, Facebook had not yet revised its privacy contract; therefore, it allowed software developers to access user information. Mark Zuckerberg’s apologetic statement evidenced this gap in Facebook policies. In his interview with CNN, he stated that:
“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t, then we don’t deserve to serve you (Solon & Helmore, 2018).”
Without due diligence, Kogan, the developer of the “Thisisyourdigitallife” app, shared the data with Cambridge Analytica. This violated Facebook’s terms and conditions. Thereafter, Cambridge Analytica being a political strategy company, used the acquired data to aid in Trump’s presidential election. Christopher Wylie, an ex-Cambridge Analytica employee, told the Guardian that:
“We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles. And built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons. That was the basis the entire company was built on (Graham-Harrison & Cadwalladr, 2018).”
Moreover, the New York Times verified that the user information possessed by Cambridge Analytica could be found online. Although the scandal began in 2014, Facebook failed to take responsibility until it became a global outrage in 2018.
As a consequence of their negligence, some Facebook users were angered and they deleted their accounts. There was a mass deletion of accounts, and this was also supported by influential people in the society, for instance, Brian Acton, the founder of WhatsApp. In addition, a hashtag trend, that is, #DeleteFacebook#, emerged and this exacerbated the deletions. Facebook’s stock prices also declined. To attend to the problem, Mark Zuckerberg went on CNN, and in his interview, he mentioned that Facebook had already revised some of the rules. He said:
“We also made mistakes, there’s more to do, and we need to step up and do it (Solon & Helmore, 2018).”
Solutions to the problem
Mark Zuckerberg came up with several solutions to reduce and at most, eliminate the problem. After a five-day silence since the public announcement of the scandal, Mark Zuckerberg began by taking full responsibility for the scandal and apologized to Facebook users, stakeholders, and the community at large (Solon & Helmore, 2018). Secondly, he took steps to ensure that breaches similar to Cambridge Analytica’s never occurred. As of 2014, Facebook had already put policies into place that barred developers from gaining access to user information (Solon & Helmore, 2018). However, after the 2018 scandal, Facebook went a step further to strengthen its policies. For instance, if a user goes for three months without using an application linked to Facebook, the company is going to discontinue developer access to any data about the person. Thirdly, for developers who did have prior access to all user data from way back in 2014, Facebook is going to request that they submit an audit or get removed from the platform.
Fourth, Cambridge Analytica was requested to delete all the data is collected from the “Thisisyourdigitallife” app after thorough auditing by cybercrime experts. Fifth, Facebook announced changes in its privacy settings that enable users to delete any data collected by Facebook’s network. Though these were initially present, the company wanted to remind its users of the power they still had on their data. Last but not least, Facebook claimed that it would open a public archive that will contain all advertisements associated with political labels. The archive will show the public the amount of money spent on advertisement, demographic data for the audience reached, and the number of impressions it attracted. After creating and implementing these solutions, the question that arises is whether these revisions would successfully prevent a similar case from occurring in the future. On one hand, it is a start. This is because restricting developer access to user data could help Facebook start to rebuild some trust. On the other hand, technology is dynamic and ever-evolving; therefore, the solutions may only apply to the current situation, but they may not have a long-term effect.
Evaluating the response to the solution
Although Facebook has faced many data privacy issues, how Mark Zuckerberg handled the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal portrays his embodiment as an ethical leader. The several behaviors likened to an ethical leader that Mark Zuckerberg possesses include taking responsibility. He swiftly acknowledged that he was clearly at fault, apologized, and took full responsibility for Facebook’s unethical actions. Secondly, concerning his public apology, he portrayed humility, an attitude of wisdom, and a willingness to learn. The third attribute is honesty and straightforwardness. In addition to his apology, Zuckerberg gave a direct and clearer plan on how Facebook will fix the problem at hand. Most of Zuckerberg’s solutions were enacted early this year; therefore, the overall impact of the solutions cannot be effectively evaluated. Nevertheless, so far, Facebook is more stringent on data privacy, and there have not been any related concerns arising. Furthermore, the likelihood of another breach of privacy is unknown since technology is always developing; hence, such glitches are inevitable.
References
Fuller, M. (2018). Big Data and Facebook Scandal. Issues and responses. Theology, 122(1), pp. 14-21.
Othman, Z. & Rahman, R. (2014). Attributes of ethical leadership in leading good governance. International Journal of Business and Society, 15(2), pp. 359 – 372
There are so many online communicators people may use every day in order to meet personal needs and achieve positive results within the professional sphere of life, for example. There are so many things people can do online and even do not leave the room; numerous innovations within the Internet technologies provide users all over the world with different abilities to develop their sills, exchange information, learn more captivating facts, and help the others to comprehend how wonderful and useful the web world is.
Facebook and MySpace are the two most popular networking websites, where people get a chance to communicate, create profiles, share information, etc. Nowadays, it is hard to imagine that, at the beginning of the 21st century, people had no ideas of what Facebook or MySpace meant and how people could spend so much time there.
If a person has a chance to improve own work and communication, he/she is going to use one of these online community without any doubts and without taking into account that this use may be harmful. Such mediums for communication like Facebook and MySpace have lots of advantages and disadvantages; to comprehend the essence of their impact on people, it is better not only to know some general facts about these websites, but also be ready to analyze, compare, and realize their benefits and negative aspects.
First of all, it is necessary to admit that a certain battle between Facebook and MySpace takes place for a long period of time. These two networking websites cannot clear up which one has more dominance nowadays, which one has more international page views, and which one has heftier traffic. In spite of the fact that MySpace is one year older than Facebook, the latter has a certain number of benefits and advantages and can easily compete with the former.
Kleindorfer (2009) admits that numerous websites like Facebook have “risen from the primordial swamps of cyberspace to become major players based primarily on the power of their networks” (p.4). This is why it is not that surprisingly that Facebook and MySpace have advantages and disadvantages at the same time and have different impact on people and their online communication. Each of the above-mentioned websites has constant users and those people, who just visit it from time to time.
The preferences of users for one of these sites are caused by the differences, which MySpace and Facebook have and which people more or less active on. It does not matter that one of the website is better or worse; it is all about the spheres of work and users’ needs.
If you are searching for a job, it is possible to find some with the help of these two communicators; it turns out to be one of the benefits of MySpace and Facebook as people get a chance to find a good job within a short period of time and even do not leave their homes (Stair & Reynolds, 2009, p.73).
However, Facebook will be more beneficial for those people, who are good at computers and business, and MySpace will be more attractive for people with more creative preferences: people of art, musicians, and designers can find much more useful information on MySpace than on Facebook.
Even the general view of the sites and each page may be divided: MySpace has quite unique view, and each page has its own style and colors; and the pages of Facebook look like a bit strict and restrained. But still, both Facebook and MySpace aim at providing people with a chance to create, innovate, and demonstrate the best qualities only (Deans, 2009, p. 189).
MySpace and Facebook have lots of privileges for people, who want to communicate being far from each other: they can easily show photos, organize meetings, meet lots of new people, and find out more information. The point is that MySpace allows its users to concentrate on their creativity and amaze everyone with personal skills to create captivating pages and make them in different colors.
It turns out to be more interesting for teenagers and attract their attention more than Facebook. However, lots of adults prefer to use Facebook in order to have a chance to concentrate on the necessary communication and getting exact information, nothing more. If they have some time and desire, Facebook allows to create something really attractive as well, but not that creative as it is possible with MySpace.
This comparison of online communities will be impossible if we do not mention several negative aspects of MySpace and Facebook right now. Quick exchange of information and constant communication online has numerous advantages as well as disadvantages. For example, people are happy to have a free access to communicate with distant friends and discuss news and innovations; however, such communication may be too close and lead to quarrels and misunderstandings between rather good friends.
More than 250,000 accounts are created on MySpace each day (Mooney et al., 2008, p.631); this is why it is hard to imagine how many people can make friends day by day and have enough time to communicate with each other. So, some people take offence if one of friends does not either answer within a short period of time or check own mail frequently. This is why such inability to answer in time may cause quarrels and negatively influence user’s psychological condition.
Close connection with lots of people creates one more disadvantage – inability to get a private status. At MySpace, a personal profile is available for everyone, who has a desire to watch your page. This is why just a perfect advantage of distant communication may be easily frustrated with this negative affect of privacy inability.
Another disadvantage of such networking websites is constant spam and improper and vulgar comments. Those people, who use MySpace and Facebook to search for a job or a person, are constantly distracted by numerous windows, which appear very quickly. Such unexpected open windows may bring some harm to users’ computers and present offensive information. This inability to control spam turns out to be one of the most annoying negative affects of Facebook and MySpace.
People themselves create difficulties for other people in order to earn money – this cruel reality is evident even for online communities. They create new technologies and services and want other people evaluate and use them; MySpace and Facebook are the places, where users share this information without getting an approval from other people. Such freedom may enjoy one person and make anger another.
Of course, such diversity of online communities may be considered as a positive achievement of our society that makes our every day life easier. However, with such fast development, numerous negative aspects appear as well. For example, MySpace and Facebook cannot stop their fight in order to prove those services are better and more usable.
To get any possible answer, the developers of these communities try to create more and more conditions to follow. As a result, certain inequalities and divisions take place and make people choose something and be devoted to the chosen item. So, it is better to keep in mind that one advantage may cause several disadvantages in a short period of time; and users have to be ready to pick out the best way to follow and be satisfied with the choice.
Online communities like MySpace and Facebook, their benefits and disadvantages will be always under hot consideration among people of different age and social status. These kinds of communities are around us, and we cannot just skip them. People create more and more opportunities to develop and improve personal skills and learn this world better.
This is why all those numerous pages with quite different information about society, innovative technologies, and relations burn people with the desire to concentrate more and more on them.
It is known that more than “three-quarters of 18-34 year olds have an account on one of these social networking sites” (Business Wire, 2009); lots of people, when meet each other for the first time admit that they are Facebookers or MySpacers. Such kind of information turns out to be rather informative for some people and completely unknown for the others.
It is bad and good at the same time. This is why the comparison of benefits and negative affects of MySpace and Facebook will be always interesting and useful in order not to become addicted and even fall ill.
Reference List
Deans, P. C. (2009). Social Software and Web 2.0 Technology Trends. Richmond, United States: Idea Group Inc (IGI).
Business Wire. (2009). Just Under Half of Americans Have a Facebook or MySpace Account. BNET. Web.
Kleindorfer, P., Wind, Y., and Gunther, R.E. (2009). The Network Challenge: Strategy, Profit, and Risk in an Interlinked World. Upper Saddle River: Wharton School Publishing.
Mooney, L. A., Knox, D., & Schacht, C. (2008). Understanding Social Problems. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Stair, R. M. & Reynolds, G. W. (2009). Principles of Information Systems. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Facebook remains an amazing success as a social network, but the company has not always been the main social network in the world. Even as it enjoys the reputation, Facebook has to change frequently to protect its business interest from the competition. More than 700 million people use the Facebook platform for business and personal reasons.
Facebook collects revenue mainly in the form of online ads. Moreover, the company has introduced many other services that are still in their development phase, but give indications of being revenue sources. Facebook started as “TheFacebook”. The company started with the mission of empowering people to share information.
Porter value chain analysis
In the Facebook line of business, access to social media services is free, and revenue comes from advertising. Additional applications with payment options also bring in revenues. The company offers cost per click advertising and cost per one thousand impressions. It has focused on differentiation of its advertising program from its competitors.
Facebook has also sought to make its offering the most affordable in the market; thus, it has gone ahead to target small businesses that have a limited budget for marketing. Differentiation is through specific Facebook interfaces, such as the timeline and its integration with other websites to collect usage data that helps in the matching of advertising.
Value chain activities on Facebook include inbound logistics, production, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and services. The activities that are most significant to the customer are production and service. Production involves programming and development of new functionalities for Facebook, which are then used as the basis for offering social network features to users.
The increase in the number of users becomes the product sold to advertisers. Service activities for Facebook are the management of user interaction and presentation of different features and designs, as well as delivery of the advertisements within the Facebook platform.
Facebook does not do significant marketing and sales, except participating in industry-relevant activities and running web advertisements on other platforms on the Internet. The company uses workshops and other outreach options to ensure that advertisers are aware of all its offerings and have sufficient access to its platform. Marketing also includes product ideas, such as payment platforms tested to determine whether they can be a major source of revenue for the company.
Mind mapping
Facebook includes a web of activities and its mind map consists of fan pages, profile, groups, deals, tips, apps, stats, analytics, places, and development. Under each title, there are different product and customer options available to help grow the Facebook business. Advertising includes sponsored stories and Facebook ads.
Breaking down stats leads to reports on user activity, reports on ad popularity, reports on the number of users on Facebook, and reports on specific actions that users are taking on the platform. Breaking down apps reveal the native apps on the platform, the third-party apps, apps that integrate with Facebook pages, apps that automatically create actions on the platform and apps that are for sale or offering payment features.
Under the development features, there are social plugins and apps that offer different functionalities that are in current use or can be used to extend the functions of Facebook as a platform to aid clients’ business interests. Under usage, Facebook has groups, pages, and individual profiles.
Each of these features offers different functionalities and levels of privacy. Groups and pages are relevant for businesses that want to have more interaction with their customers, in addition to advertising on Facebook. Places include location-based information that populates the Facebook experience of its users and help to target advertising.
Places can be on the Internet and within Facebook, as well as physical locations identified by the Facebook algorithms whenever users mention them on their profiles. Facebook had different functions and services in profiles. They include updates about personal network members, privacy settings, control of broadcasts and ad audiences, Facebook messages, photos and tagging, and management of followers and friends.
Divergent & convergent
The acquisition and retention of talented human resources are challenging tasks for companies in high technology industries. Many of them are opting to acquire smaller companies to gain their human resources advantages. Facebook has been able to use this strategy in line with its expansion plans.
The practice helps the company to address its competitive advantage needs. The company can preserve a startup team as a cohesive resource bundle. After acquiring a company, Facebook workers get special compensation packages to make them more willing to stay at the bigger company that acquired them. On the other hand, the acquiring company can preserve the dynamic capabilities of the acquired firm. It also gets the tacit knowledge that is embedded in the startup’s team dynamics.
Facebook and other social media platforms continue to embrace the same functionalities for their customers and their users. Facebook has introduced some features that are inspired by its competition in the social media market. It originally started with a user profile that showed updates of friends’ activities on Facebook.
The company introduced the “Like” button, which allowed users to express satisfaction quickly without writing anything. Recently, Facebook introduced a “Follow” option, in addition to friendship. This matches the option of following another person’s profile that is available on Twitter. The company then introduced the blogging feature for its notes, which made it conform to the strategies provided by content management systems that host blogs such as the Google’s Blogger service and the WordPress.com service.
Notably, Facebook has introduced “news feeds” and sponsored posts on its user feeds to match what Twitter is offering on its timelines. The company is targeting all audiences, as it tries to provide different functionalities that all its competitors provide to ensure that it keeps its large user base. Facebook also copied Google+ features of having circles.
On its platform, users can categorize friendships in terms of family, close friends, and other categories available by default or created by the user. Recently, Facebook launched its video platform, allowing users to upload videos and share them on its feeds. Meanwhile, it detached its Facebook Messenger platform, which it provides as a standalone app for mobile users, similar to Google’s Hangouts.
The above convergence strategies by Facebook are part of the overall industry trend. They help the company to continue attracting a large user base and retain its appeal against the competitive onslaught from its rivals (Sloane 2012). Meanwhile, looking at the overall business processes and intentions of Facebook shows that the company has convergent thinking.
Facebook has used all its avenues to bring users to its platform or enhance their experiences so that it can serve ads to the largest user base. The company can consolidate intelligence about users and direct them to view ads from its clients using apps, different platforms such as Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, while maintaining the users’ engagement in the respective platforms.
The company has chosen to focus on mobile phone users as its avenue for growth. It even uses free internet access offers to different populations around the world to sustain its vision of having the largest number of people using the Facebook platform.
Prototyping process and repairing process
Facebook tests new platforms or app integrations before making them mainstream features. It separated its messenger services from the mobile Facebook app. The company changed its user requirements for mobile messaging when there was significant uptake. Consequently, users had to use the app. Earlier on, the company asked users to use their real identities online, but it decided to step back from the decision and let users have alternative identities after facing resistance from users and fearing loss of its main user base.
The rise of alternatives to Facebook has been a pressure point for the company’s change in approach to new products or features (Bort 2014). The company also had a major redesign vision that changed midway after realizing that a personalized newspaper for its users would not be successful, and the move would alienate some of its users.
The company tests its prototypes first before adopting them as mainstream practices. Facebook uses developers and beta testers who have privilege access to its new services. The company also rolls out services to the public and retracts them when they are not received well (Kapko 2014).
Entrepreneurial Skills
Adaptability
Facebook has purchased more than 50 startup companies and stopped the products and services that the startups were providing. The strategy allows the company in adapting to its environment, being equipped to take on new trends and having well-skilled staff members to inspire new approaches to business environment changes.
Facebook started as a social media startup company and has grown to a giant company providing services to 2.5 million advertisers that target its 1.4 billion users (Digital Strategy Consulting 2015). It used app purchases as a revenue stream, and then picked on desktop advertising before launching into mobile advertising. Currently, the company is testing video advertising and targeting companies that would advertise on traditional television channels (Digital Strategy Consulting 2015).
Facebook has also acquired other companies that have significant user bases and functionalities to expand its portfolio as a new media company. It acquired Instagram, WhatsApp, and TheFind as notable leaders in their respective markets to bring additional market intelligence and functionality.
For example, the acquisition of TheFind allowed Facebook to have the largest expertise in product sourcing and leverage its more than 1 billion people on the platform (Bose 2015). The company has also been testing its payment services as it seeks to become an e-commerce platform, in addition to being a social media giant. It has also created new functionalities on its messenger platform to lure businesses and transform the Messenger into an e-commerce platform that will use its peer-to-peer payment service (Mac 2015).
Managing cash effectively
Facebook started with angle investor funds and eventually made a public offering that transformed it into a public company. The company today relies on strong mobile advertising business, which has helped the company to beat its earnings projections. Its mobile ads revenue has climbed to 90 percent of the company’s revenue. Other sources of funds for the company include desktop advertising and payments. The company has used revenues and investors’ funds to make acquisitions help it grow its advertising and e-commerce business.
Focus on customers
People use Facebook’s social media options to connect with an audience for business purposes. The Facebook users are its product while its customers are the entities seeking to reach out to the Facebook’s user base. Sometimes, the customers are also users of Facebook and are, therefore, products too.
Facebook has been focusing on keeping its ad network clean and effective in leading relevant referrals to clients. It opted to introduce mobile ads, in addition to desktop ads as a way of responding to its clients’ demand for richer access to its user base. Facebook’s customers are the advertisers on its platform.
The company has been focusing on both small and large-scale advertisers. It has been making small innovations to its advertising program to allow small businesses to join and useful drive referrals to their businesses. Facebook realizes that many people expect it to deliver social results, but it is also keeping ahead with its business mandate of delivering business results (Abrams 2014).
Facebook is allowing advertisers to place their content in the middle of a user’s news stream, such that they are hard to miss during typical Facebook usage. It also offers user data about preferences and associations so that advertisers get a better outcome of their market targeting.
Facebook also gets revenues from direct payments for apps and in-app purchases that are on the Zynga platform. It has improved its advertising offerings to include video and partnered with TV rating firm Nielsen to help advertisers plan their campaigns on its platform in comparison to traditional media (Digital Strategy Consulting 2015).
Humility
Facebook has grown from humble origins, and its management is yet to become arrogant about the business’ success. The company retains its core leadership and treats its employees well. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of the company, is noted for giving out perks and empowering employees. He has built Facebook workplaces to relaxing, and the company offers free lunches while allowing its employees to de-stress without having to leave their workplaces.
The company has thousands of employees and remains adaptable to an individual level; being able to consider employee concerns and suggestions for improving the workplace relations and the environment. Humility has been a factor for management that allows the company to retain most of the workforce coming from the acquired companies (Kux 2014).
The company’s head is deeply involved in activities that Facebook does to grow its business. He communicates frequently with the employees. The leaders can stay engaged in projects without micromanaging, which shows a great value of humility.
Creating & Managing Alliances
Facebook prefers to acquire companies rather than form alliances with them. It has made more than 50 acquisitions since its formation. However, the company has also partnered with mobile telecom companies in the developing world to offer free access to Facebook for its users.
It has also partnered with analytics firms like Nielsen to help it serve its customer advertising interests well. However, its alliances with telecom companies in the Middle East have been problematic as many of them complain of reduced revenues as a result of offering access to Facebook at subsided rates (Darwell 2013).
Creativity & Innovation
Most social media services available on Facebook are available at no cost to the users. Nevertheless, the company has to make use of the collective resources it has as a business. The most innovative approaches have been the use of the mined data to present third party businesses with ideas on ways to reach target customers. Another business venture has been the use of the collected consumer intelligence as a product for sale.
As Facebook grows, its level of innovation also reduces. However, its leadership has focused on making acquisitions of startup companies that are promising, which has led to improved creativity and innovation. The company has also ensured that it remains a great place to work. Employees can bring all their creativity and put up great projects that transform into commercial successes for the company (Eichenwald 2013).
Optimism & Inspiration
The company continues to lead the transformation of social media and general internet usage. Facebook is showing advertisers new ways of reaching audiences. Moreover, it seeks to become the number one platform for internet advertising, especially for mobile advertising.
The company remains optimistic that more than one billion users will remain active on the platform as Facebook uses that number to entice advertisers to choose Facebook for their marketing campaigns. Facebook is inspired by the startup spirit and has been keen to acquire promising startups that help it to remain innovative.
