Competing for Advantage - Assignment Example

Introduction The report looks at providing the different areas where Telstra needs to improve so that the overall performance of the business improves. The report looks to provide the manner in which Facebook can be used as a social platform for spreading awareness and the consequences using a social networking site would provide. The report also provides information relating to different ethical issues which surrounds the usage of social networking sites and the manner in which the overall relevance and importance of the same can be improved. The report also presents went wrong as per the new social media engagement policy and highlights the manner in which improvements is required in different areas. Answer 1. A) It is appropriate to treat communication on a platform such as Facebook as a form of public rather than private communication since when employees post comments about their organizations they may not realize the importance of such comments which may form an important part of the marketing communication mix of the employer’s planned messages and which through social networking sites become a public message and significantly have a negative impact on the organization. Further each platform has limited functionality and organizations have very little or no control over their respective design and features. Moreover there are no warnings to any changes in such platform. Privacy on platforms like Facebook is an illusion as even if other users cannot access to certain information and activity the platform provider can and does easily access to such private communications. Further even though social networking sites enable account holders to customize their own private settings, such settings are more complex and account holders usually tend to avoid the same which makes their information public than private (Coughlan, Stern & Adl Ansary, 2006). Commenting or liking a page on Facebook makes all the information of the account holder available to anyone who looks at that particular page. In addition to the same there is always a perceived privacy threat in relation to placing personal information on social networking sites as the same allow large corporations or governmental bodies a chance to produce the personal information of such account holder on which actions detrimental to the individual may easily take place. B) One should not post anything which he/ she does not wants his/her boss or future employer to read as social networking sites particularly Facebook has gained much popularity and it is very easy to access personal posts unless one has changed the privacy settings which usually account holders ignore. Further it is to be noted that once anything which is posted on internet remains on internet, no matter if an individual changes the privacy settings after posting such comments. Poking around social networking sites have become common and popular among employers who does the same to do background checks, testing checks and gather more information about their existing or potential employees and anything which is posted by an employee in haste or out of fun may seriously affect his job and can even lead to termination of his/her job. In a nutshell, employees who does not want any of their post to be read by their boss or future employees should cautiously not post such issues as it information shared on public social networking sites are easily accessible and can largely affect their job and positions in the company along with detrimental consequences in future search of jobs. Answer 2. Telstra’s social media engagement policy primarily focuses on protection of company and its brand image however the same provides protection to its employees in the following ways. Its policies are designed in a manner to provide guidance and direction on the ethical and responsible decision making behavior of its employees. The policy is equipped with a whistle blowing service which allows its employees to reports on matters which they consider susceptible, unethical, illegal or improper with an assurance of secrecy to the disclosure of the whistle blower (Lovelock & Wirtz, 2007). To avoid any serious detrimental consequences to its employees, its policy provides guidelines for its employees who uses social media as a part of their job or in personal capacity to be aware of the terms and usage of the policy and also recognizes the rights of its employees to engage themselves in social media (Lovelock & Wirtz, 2007). The policy provides an ethical approach by making its employees understand the appropriate use of online behavior whenever they are recognized or could be recognized in future thus eliminating the risk of breach of laws and regulations which could seriously affect the employees in long run in relation to their job security. Approvals are required by employees or contractors who use social media for business purpose on behalf of Telstra, thus clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of its employees with secure protection of unnecessary consequences which may attract in case of lack of knowledge about the correct and transparent use of social media for both personal and business purposes. The policy is so designed to ensure ethical standards are met as their policy does not allow a complete freedom to say anything about the company, but within limitation to speak openly on Telstra which constantly reminds them about their roles and responsibilities thus ensuring no detrimental disrepute to both company and its employees and providing a protection to its employees to not indulge in any activities which may harm company and their job positions. Answer 3. A new social media policy should be grounded with ethics as ethics play an important role in modern organizational culture and traditional ethical rules still apply online. Further social networking technologies open space to an ethical dilemma where personal identities and communities which are both real and virtual are constructed, negotiated, performed and managed. Ethical standards in social media policy help in maintaining accuracy, fairness, honesty, impartiality and transparency in its dealings. Ethics in social media policy provides guidance and ethical awareness for employees on use of social media whether for business or personal use. While developing a social media policy it is of utmost importance to address the ethical challenges which the employee and company both faces as ignoring same can lead to regulatory problems and government interventions which may be detrimental for the brand image of the company and job security of the employees (Ireland, Hoskisson and Hitt, 2007). Ethical function integrated with other functions indeed helps in developing an effective social media policy. When employees are governed with ethical standards both in personal and business use of social media it helps in promoting brand awareness, consumer awareness and a workplace which is ethical in nature with compliance with corporate governance issues. Further incorporating ethics in social media policy creates an agreement that sets expectations, responsibility, awareness and accountability of all people governed with such policy where employees understand the importance and impact or corporate ethics and creates a logical connection between ethics and social media which acts as an integral tool in determining the long term success of an organization. Thus, building a new social media policy with just do’s and don’ts without grounding the same on ethical issues may be detrimental to the sustainability of the business. Answer 4. Telstra’s social media engagement policy requires all employees to adhere to the terms of use and seek to conform to the cultural and behavioral norms of the social media platform being used. This proviso makes sense from a marketing communication perspective since when employees use social media they may not be aware to future detrimental which they may face as a result of being ignorance of their posts and sharing information on public platforms like social networking sites. Further this proviso helps in aligning principles governing social media engagement policy with legal imperatives like copyrights, privacy issues and relevant rules and regulations which govern publishing posts and information through online contents (Doole and Lowe, 2001). From a marketing communication perspective inclusion of such proviso helps in building a social contract which binds the use of social media and sustains communities. It further helps in building brand equity of the organization and provides an alarming signal to the employees of their use of social media which is for both private and public purposes as any content in personal behavior using the position of Telstra’s can be seriously detrimental for an employee and can even lead to termination of job. Further inculcating such principle directly targets the Respect and Responsibility proviso which are the main components of the 3 R’s of Telstra and act as an important tool in the marketing communication mix of social media engagement. Answer 5. One of the former employee of Telstra named Leslie Nassar made a fake Twitter account of Stephen Conroy who was the Communication Minister and made many comments as if they were from the minister and made 708 tweets and attracted a total of 1531 followers to his fake account. His tweets were related to measures taken for filtration of internet content as proposed by Australian Federal Government. This action soon became a political issue and accelerated the tension between Telstra and the Australian Federal Government which excluded Telstra from the bidding process of over $10 billion National Broadband Network. Telstra took disciplinary actions against Leslie and came up with a new social media engagement policy which focused on the 3 R’s. The 3 R’s briefly meant Representation, Responsibility and Respect. Further it was found in terms of this policy that Leslie was not found of a breach of conduct in terms of his personal use of social media platform as no references were made with regards to issues and confidential statements of Telstra but he was however found to be wrong to this social media engagement policy in terms of his “Representation clause” as his clarification of using a fake identity made a direct linkage of his identity with Telstra and he had broken his responsibility of being an ethical employee to the company. He was further found to be wrong against the “Respect Clause” as he has been indulged in making abusive comments after his acceptance of using a fake identity (Czinkota & Ronkainen, 2002). Furthermore his actions has brought huge losses to company and proved to be detrimental against the company’s long term sustainable growth as the same led to exclusion of the company from bidding against the National Broadband Network as the policy clearly forbids the online behavior which could in any possibility bring the company or its business partners into disrepute which was clearly evidence from this case. The social engagement policy however in no sense prevents employees from using social media in terms of their personal capacity however the same assigns clear levels of responsibility in terms of their online behavior. The policy further clearly spells out that individuals or employees who are a part of Telstra should seek advice and clarification before posting anything and how the policy applies to them so Leslie’s creation of a false identity was clearly within the breach of the policy. Furthermore it was a case were the employee has indulged himself in false representation with fake responsibilities and disrespect attitude which proved to be detrimental for Telstra both in terms of its brand image, reputation and financial losses. Conclusion The report providea the manner in which Facebook can be used as a social platform for spreading awareness and the consequences using a social networking site would provide. The report also provides information relating to different ethical issues which surrounds the usage of social networking sites and the manner in which the overall relevance and importance of the same can be improved. The report also presents went wrong as per the new social media engagement policy and highlights the manner in which improvements is required in different areas. References Czinkota, R. C., & Ronkainen, L. (2002). International Marketing. Fort Worth, TX: Harcout College Publishers. Coughlan, A., Stern, W. & Adl Ansary, E. (2006). Marketing Channels, 7e, ISBN 9780131913462 ISBN 10:0131913468 , Pearson Education Doole, I., and Lowe, R. (2001). International Marketing Strategy. 3rd Edition, Bedford Row, London, Thomson Lovelock, C. & Wirtz, J. (2007). Service Marketing: People, Technology & Strategy. 6th edition, Prentice Hall Ireland, R. D, Hoskisson, R. E, and Hitt, M. A, (2007). Competing for advantage, Cengage Learning Read More