Assessing Value and Risk of Social Media Use within Organisations - Essay Example

• Technical solution considerations: tangible and intangible metrics

Introducing a new technology has serious implications for an organization and for the technical solutions, the company or the organization should have first-hand information about some of the expenses that will be required for accessing as well as maintaining the new technology (Doherty and Fulford, 2006). In this case, the management must be able to identify or evaluate the expenses and as such, compare them to the costs that would have been incurred in maintaining the old system. Apart from the costs incurred for maintaining and running the technical solution, other important costs would consider, including the extent to which the digital solution leads to the improvement in the service delivery (Jacoby and Luqi, 2007). Some of the important information that the company will need to have before implementing the technical solution include costs initial expenses or costs incurred when purchasing both hardware as well as the software components. Besides, the company will incur expenses for hiring the consultants for helping with the setup of the system as well as some of the costs for management and maintenance (Doherty and Fulford, 2006). Nonetheless, the organization is obligated to have first-hand information of the expected life-span for the technical solution. Therefore, in general, it is necessary to have information on some of the costs, benefits and the effectiveness of the technical solution to be introduced.

On the other hand, with a digital solution, there some important information that the organization will use to determine the extent to which the project is a strategic fit for the organization. For instance, it is necessary for the management to audit the digital materials and this will entail analyzing the risks as well as the opportunities associated with the digital or technical solution materials. It is also necessary to have information about institutional analysis whereby the company is evaluated in terms of its readiness to the change and this can be evaluated in terms of the process and content of the digital solution. Nonetheless, before implementing the project, it is necessary to have or document the stakeholders concerned with the project or doing a stakeholder analysis based on the individuals who will be working on the project as well as those using the materials. Therefore, for this case, the information will help in identifying or determining the best way to engage with the different stakeholders. Besides, just like any other project, a technical or digital solution must be based on some of clearly stated objectives, besides outlining how effective is the new solution to the current business strategy. For instance, the project can be viewed in terms of how its proposed approach to cultural change management may be in line with the current organizational culture and the same applies to the impact it will have in the current governance as well as the necessary policy change required before its implementation.

However, introducing digital solution has incentives for both tangible and intangible merits. For one, cost saving is one of the tangible merits that would justify an investment into a digital solution (Jacoby and, 2007). Although it is more of a question of the cost incurred during the investment against the cost for incurred in managing and carrying out the daily operations of the organization, it can be argued that a digital solution is cost-effective. The implication is that digital solution projects are easy and more convenient to implement because the project manager will have a better approach towards controlling the budgetary allocations. Concerning tangible metrics, managing risks is one of the elements or aspects of the technical solution that makes it cost effective (Smithson and Hirschheim, 1998). For instance, with the implementation of the digital solution, financial metrics can be realized through the reduced costs in governance because with a digital approach or solution to governance, there will be a reduced or reduction in the personnel required to run the particular operations. However, a major drawback may concern the expense incurred in training the project management team for getting informed about the different aspects of managing the technical solution projects (Jacoby and, 2007).

Particularly, one of the intangible benefits required or needed for the implementation of the project is how best the proposed digital solution will have an impact on teamwork (Jacoby and, 2007). For instance, the proposal is to propose a cultural change management and for this case, the project should be evaluated based on how it will be effective in steering culture teamwork in the entire organization. The same applies to governance because with the proposed policy change, the project should bring about some benefits to the way the human resource is managed (Smithson and Hirschheim, 1998). On the other hand, with the new digital solution, for it to lead to a culture in change, the project can be evaluated concerning the effects or impacts it has in fostering mutual responsibility and culture of cooperation that can be sustained in the end (Andriole, 2010). Therefore, the intangible benefit for the digital solution should be the impacts it has in establishing a collaborative and a productive workforce.

2. Social media risks and patterns in the organization

Although the introduction of social media has been lauded for improving the communication of any organization, one of the major impediments brought about by this approach is the change it has brought about in organization’s pattern of risks. For instance, with the advent of technology, an organization has to deal with those risks pertaining to productivity because in most cases, it is impossible to control social networking during the working hours (Aula, 2010). Therefore, by introducing a digital solution, the organization will have to be confronted with serious workplace productivity risks that can compromise the overall performance and as such, affect negatively on the extent to which the organization can meet its targeted goals and objectives. On the other hand, social media has serious implications on the reputation of the organization because in certain instances, the employees may resort to making some compromising posts about the company or the employer and this can have serious implications on the corporate image of the company (Watson and Lopiano, 2016). Moreover, a serious threat or risk with social media is the way the organization has to deal with the changing pattern or approach to dealing with security threats (Aula, 2010). The implication is that with increased usage, instances of increased security threats especially viruses, malware that are always present in most networking sites may compromise the information system of the organization. In addition, the company will have to deal with a new calibre of security threats including identity theft, data breaches and managing the accessibility of the entire information system.

As such, there are some practical solutions as the approaches to managing or addressing the risks posed by the using social media in the places of work. For one, the organization should have proper incentives for legal as well as compliance strategies aimed at addressing the risks (Kayworth and Whitten, 2010). On the other hand, a proper mechanism should be put in place for ensuring that the retention of records as well as the disposition of the schedules all address the social media information that has been created, accessed, transmitted, captured as well as stored within the relevant technological infrastructure (Watson and Lopiano, 2016). A formal approach to addressing the issue is by putting in place incentives for monitoring the applicable privacy laws, as it concerns breach of data, and that such should be subject to the necessary changes (Aula, 2010). In this case, proper understanding of the applicable privacy laws is necessary as this will allow the organization, through the management, to understand the instances when privacy rights are overriding the organizational policies. Moreover, a formal approach to addressing the risks will be the creation off policy that aims at communication the expectations of the organization as it concerns the acceptable form or usage of social media, including some of the ramifications of the misuse of social media (Nosworthy, 2000). On a technical basis or approach, the organization can ensure proper incentives of managing or addressing the security concerns through its technical infrastructure. For instance, the system should be protected using the necessary security, especially restricting accessing to the company’s information system through password protection. On the other hand, the company should acquire the best security infrastructure, particularly, using anti-virus software to protect the system against malware that compromise the entire system (Kayworth and Whitten, 2010).

In the world of organizational management, already there exists cases where an organization took the appropriate measure to handle or address social media risk posed by its employee. The Braden v Ulster Independent Clinic was a practical example demonstrating the use of a policy because evaluation of the employees data showed that worker had been using Facebook for 662 hours and other considerate amount of time in Twitter, Messenger Live within a span of a year. Although dismissing an employee can be the best applicable punishment, one of the appropriate approaches to such issues is that an organization should always strive at all costs to help the employees understand the company policies. The implication is that lack of training, in the part of employees, is a major risk for the employers because when the HR policies are not understood properly, it will not make a difference whether a disciplinary action has been taken against an employee (Doherty et al., 2009). Therefore, for the benefit of the organization, it is quite imperative or necessary to have proper policy training, as this will ensure that employees are best placed to understand the incentives put in place to control how they use and interact with the social media.

3 Digital governance

In the digital workplace, the role of governance is varied and entailed different aspects including taxonomy, collaboration, social behaviour, brand management, content, designing roles, communication, adoption as well as training (Knappa et al., 2009). As such, the governance has the role of integrating the intranet strategy with the organization’s business strategy. In this case, the governance will review the business strategy concerning what it strives to achieve against the objectives or the roles that the digital solution is set to play in achieving the set goals. On the other hand, the governance reviews the organizational culture and compares to the intended or anticipated strategic changes, concerning the cultural transformation, that should be in place to ensure that the digital governance or the technical solution is adopted (Siponen, 2000). Nonetheless, the digital governance has diverse roles and these are divided to include the content author, the site manager, the digital strategy or the governance team, infrastructure lead, publisher, and subject matter experts. Overall, the digital governance aims or has a role in linking the entire governance framework, for digital content management, with the operational as well as the strategic governance (Minnie, 2015). As such, it is also the work of the digital governance to leverage the company’s risk management strategies and the compliance software. In addition, it is the work or the role of the digital governance to put in place incentives for ensuring the sustainability of the digital workplace. In this case, it is the role of the governance to have an understanding of the language guideline (corporate language, handling of the language within the local sites, and addressing language within social spaces) (Schneier, 2008). Besides, the governance takes the responsibility of reviewing the content or establishing when the contents are to be reviewed, when to archive or delete the content. Finally, the digital governance conducts a review of the governance model, when it should be updated, gathering of the feedback and reporting of the changes within the governance roles.

Just like any other governance context, the digital workplace is also subject to different trade-offs between central and decentralized approach to developing and implementing policies. In a centralized governance, one of the advantages is that it is easier and much convenient to interpret policies as well as apply them consistently within or across the organization (Knappa et al., 2009). Therefore, with the centralized approach, the governance of the organization has to consider balancing between clear interpretations of the policies against the extent to which the policies are strictly applied at the workplace. Another trade-off that the governance has to make is ensuring the proper balance of managing quality and the standards of the digital content. The implication is that the central governance leads to proper or optimal utilization of the limited human resource skills and resources, put in one place and properly management as well as deployed to be in line with the corporate priorities (Minnie, 2015). However, within the digital governance context, a central approach to establishing digital workplace policies may lead to the illusion of exercising too much control (Siponen, 2000). The executive management feels that it has the strict mandate of ensuring that the policies are developed and implemented its own way; thus, bringing about the disadvantage of failing to include other people within the organizational structure.

On the contrary, a decentralized system can bring about benefits by making sure that the employees have an influence or impact on the digital governance as it concerns developing of policies (Minnie, 2015). In this case, the policy recommendations can be developed by considering the views from the employees as the subordinates in the organization and this brings about the benefits of getting the best idea or clue on what policy is the best for the particular case. The decentralized system is developed with the consideration that least chain of command exists while on the other hand, inconsistency may arise due to lack of a proper channel for communicating the policy objectives (Knappa et al., 2009). However, since compliance may become a serious issue or implication with the decentralized approach it is best necessary to have a centralized policy formulation approach because it will lead to strict adherence thus reducing risks associated with digital workplace.

4. Key elements of Social Media Policy

One of the most important elements as it concerns a new social media policy for a global corporation is the prohibition of disclosure as it entails to confidentiality information that can otherwise have a detrimental effect on the company’s investor behaviour or the stock price (Doherty et al., 2009). In this case, prohibition on the disclosure of the company information is necessary for a globalized company that operates in a highly competitive global market. Another important element of the social media policy is the preclusion on the unauthorized utilization of trademarks, corporate logos and copyrighted materials from the company especially on social media posts (Karydaa et al., 2005). It is also important to have incentives encouraging the employees for raising concerns, both at the external and internal level by following the most appropriate complaint reporting forums or channels. Besides, a new policy should sound a warning to the employees regarding improper social media communication and as such, recommend stiffer penalties, although the policy should not broadly state that the employees should be disciplined (Doherty et al., 2009). Nonetheless, an important element with the policy is the provision of examples of some of the best practices to be adopted in social media communications. For instance, the policy should state the importance of being accurate and truthful, avoiding obscenities, offensive language and slurs and disclosure of important or confidential information.

However, for a large organization operating in a global context, the best element for its social media policy is the prohibition on the disclosure of the company’s confidential information like logo and other corporate information (Siponen, 2000). The implication is that by providing such information, the company’s competitive position can be compromised by bringing about the risk of intellectual property theft (Nosworthy, 2000). On the other hand, the secrets of the organization can be known to the public and the rivals; thus, compromising the company’s competitive position. Concisely, a policy protecting the company against exposure of intellectual property is necessary to reduce imminent risks from intellectual property theft and confidentiality breaches.