Answer

Analysis of Facebook From Ethics and Leadership Perspectives

The true identities of organizations are determined via an analysis of their organizational culture, systems, structure, leadership, diversity, politics, control and resistance among other factors (Perez, 2018). Culture refers to the values, attitudes, and beliefs which underpin the organizational processes. Notably, people in organizations bring not only their skills, but also their attitudes, values, and belief systems. However, according to Ferrell (2016), leadership entails the ability of an organization to ensure that it is in the forefront in the industry in terms of ensuring proper procedures and practices are deployed. Organizations should adopt cultures which cultivate the values which are not only beneficial to the entities, but also in tandem with the best principles in the industry. Organizations should also ensure that they act ethically by observing some of the ethical practices (Johnson, 2018). One of the organizations which has been in the media for the past six months is Facebook. This essay provides an analysis of the organization by attending to the aspects of ethics and leadership.

Overview of The Organization

Facebook is a US multinational providing online social media as well as social networking services. The company was launched in February 2004 and is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, in the U.S (Hall, 2018). Apart from the countries which have blocked the use of Facebook, the company has presence in every part of the globe. The launch of Facebook was done by its current CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg, assisted by fellow students in Harvard. After the launch, only a small number of people were allowed to register. However, since 2006, Facebook has allowed people who are over 13 years of age to register and own an account. In 2012, the company held its first initial public offering (IPO) which valued the organization at $104 billion (Hall, 2018). Although Facebook is used for social interactions, it has become a key platform for e-businesses and product promotions through advertisements. Most of Facebook’s revenue is made from advertisements which pop up on the screen and are directed to certain groups of people in specific regions. When individuals register for Facebook, they provide their personal details such as names, occupations, schools they attended, and even their contact details. However, the users can decide whether they want certain information to be made public or not. Users of Facebook can connect with their friends, exchange messages with them, share photos and videos and post their status updates. Additionally, friends can access each other’s personal details including the names and contact details.

In the last several months, Facebook has been in the news for all the bad reasons. In specific, the company has faced scrutiny over the manner in which it handles private information of its users (Mahmoodi et al., 2018). An attack happened on the company’s database which led to the exposure of nearly 50 million users’ personal information. The breach of privacy was the largest that the company has ever experienced in its 14 years history (Isaac & Frenkel, 2018). The news of the breach came on the heels of another scandal that Facebook had been involved in whereby British analytics gained access to the company’s database and got access to private information of over 87 million users. Such information was used to influence the 2016 US presidential elections. According to Nugent (2018), the attack was aided by three software flaws in Facebook’s systems which made it possible for the hackers to break into the accounts of the users. According sources familiar with the investigations, the hackers even accessed the accounts of top executives of the company- Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg (Isaac & Frenkel, 2018). Critics have argued that the company lacks leadership and thus the breach was just but one of the demonstrations that Facebook is unable to come to terms with its problems. Others have argued that Facebook provided information to third parties which was a breach of privacy and thus unethical.

Ethics

Ethics refers to the moral principles which should be followed by professionals in their business conduct. Benbunan-Fich (2017) opines that the ethics have their origin in people and their organizational systems. Additionally, ethics can be derived from the existing legal systems. Some of the constituents of ethics in business include customs and values which have been found to be vital. According to Johnson (2018), business ethics are those contemporary organizational standards, principles, and beliefs as well a set of values which seek to govern proper conduct/behavior of individuals in organizations. The revelation that Cambridge Analytica harvested the Facebook profiles of over 50 million users raises the questions of ethics in data protection and disclosure (Nugent, 2018). Ethically, Facebook is required to ensure that it seeks the consent of users before it shares their information to third parties. Additionally, Benbunan-Fich (2017) asserts that the company is expected to protect the personal information of the users as a matter of ethics. However, when the breach of privacy occurred, there were wrangle among the executives of the company on whether the access to the profiles constituted a breach and hence, unethical.

It was unethical for Facebook to allow a vast majority of its business data to be acquired by a third party without knowledge and consent of the users. As a matter of ethics, Facebook ought to have sought the consent of the users before it allowed the harvesting of such information (Benbunan-Fich, 2017). The transfer of data by Facebook without any form of consent from the users is a clear demonstration of lack of ethics in the company’s operations. According to Nugent (2018), Facebook lacked candor with its users which means that the public did not realize the extent to which their personal information and data were being harvested. It was unethical for Facebook to capitalize on the ignorance of the users who put their personal information in the public domain unaware that it could be used by third parties without their consent and approval. Ethical data management should have been key for Facebook and the organization should have exercised responsibility while working with personal information of the users (Ferrell, 2016). The existence of new technology should not be justification for failure by the company to ignore the ethical concerns.

Leadership

In the realm of business, leadership refers to the ability of organizations to not only set and achieve their goals, but also take swift and decisive actions. The purpose of leadership is to provide direction for a company as well as show the workers how they can effectively undertake their mandates. Perez (2018) states that effective leadership requires organizations to be honest, exhibit integrity, trustworthiness, and ethics. Facebook lacked leadership during the scandal where personal information of its users was harvested by a third party without the consent of the users. Notably, leadership would have demanded that the company informs the users of the breach immediately it happened (Rosoff, 2018). However, Facebook did not do that and waited until the breach was in the public domain before publicly confirming the breach. Additionally, the company was not honest and did not display ethics, a key characteristic of effective leadership. Moreover, leadership requires integrity on the part of the leaders, which means that they should safeguard the interests of all the shareholders. Lack of leadership was displayed when Facebook failed to acknowledge the breaches (Thomas et al., 2018). Additionally, the organization did not immediately acknowledge the breaches and apologize to the users until it was too late.

The problem that Facebook has faced after the breach was about lack of leadership. The reactions of the company after the breach was a vacillation between defensive cluelessness and aloof silence. Good leaders are known for admitting mistakes, apologizing quickly, and showing up where and when they are needed (Rosoff, 2018). The reaction of Facebook executives was that of a spin to bury the bad news. Every time that the news of the breach came forward, the executives downplayed their significance. The leadership of Facebook has been seen to react inappropriately to negative news (Mahmoodi et al., 2018). Effective leadership would require the CEO and other top executives to come forward and face the problem head-on. However, the action of the top leaders focusing only on guarding the reputation of the company is a demonstration of lack of leadership (Rosoff, 2018). When the news about data harvesting came to public domain, Facebook had the responsibility to show its true character through the leaders. However, the leadership of the company hid for five days and when it came out, it was aloof.

In conclusion, organizations are identified by their culture, ability to follow ethical principles and standards, as well as the leadership traits of its leaders. Facebook has been in the news for the past six months due to the scandal which saw the harvesting of users’ data by third parties without their (users’) consent. The company lacked both ethics and leadership in the manner in which it handled this scandal. Notably, it was unethical for the company to allow third parties to access users’ personal information without their permission. Additionally, the failure of the company to take measures to avert the breach was a demonstration of unethical behavior. Lack of leadership was displayed when top executives’ reaction to the scandal was defensive cluelessness and aloof silence.