Ethical Issues in Social Media

Dr Attracta Lagan

Focus for today

1. New mindsets shaping new expectations & new patterns of human behaviour

2. Social Media Reshaping Workplace Dynamics3. Ethical risks to business and society4. Responding to the times

Uber impacts of social media

• Economics of abundance not scarcity• Sharing redefining ideas of privacy & property• Tools to both improve or ruin lives; our own as

well as others• More knowledge but lack of clarity about rights• New potentials requiring new type of self

awareness & accountability• Addiction, privacy & harassment concerns

Digital Immigrants, Digital NativesMarc Prensky

• Digital Natives function best when networked• Want to be involved & heard• Seek recognition for the skills they bring• Thrive on immediacy & frequent rewards • Prefer game mode when working & learning

Ethics & ExpectationsBusiness world

• Digital generational divide• Internet new public square• High trust in new brands & distrust in old• CSR non negotiable

Business Impacts

• Technology reshaping customer demands - more & quicker & active involvement

• Every leader expected to earn respect• Leadership defined in terms of character

trumping competency

Source: National Business Ethics Survey 2012

Source: National Business Ethics Survey 2012

Impacts of social media

• We are all on show - no work/life boundary• Reputational fragility; immediate & future

consequences• Social media in recruitment, performance

management and firing • New forms of cyber crime

And the response by the Cisco executive:

Ethical dilemmas in efficiency environment

• Business have greater control & same time less as mobile devices increase complexity & speed , no time for ethical boundaries to be set

• With increasing speed to market increased risk as controls circumvented to beat competitors

• Internal Audit seen as barrier to success by company unless positioned as seamless contributors within the workflow

Ethical risks

• Need to safeguard against it taking us to places we don’t want to go, changing what we do and who we are

• Proliferation of information - decreasing its importance; rise of relativism

• Stakeholder activism making business decisions more complex

• Principles vs. rules

Spotlight risks

1. Consumers advocating and buying into companies aligned with their values

2. Companies must be able to show they have nothing to hide with more transparency

3. Top brands expected to enlist customers help to contribute to a more sustainable future

4. Pressure groups will leverage social media to harvest consumer action

Source: trendwatch.com

New World Order

• Virtual world collaboration can show us how to live better in the real world

• Rise of Virtue capitalism• People people new workplace performance

multiplier• Our challenge is to embrace difference; retain

good & be revitalized by the new

Thank you!