Facebook: overview and impact on social media

¶ … Social Networks' Implications on Organizations

Social networks are changing how people, companies, and governments communicate globally. Forcing a greater level of authenticity, accountability, and transparency into relationships between people and companies, social networks are in the process of altering how companies, organizations, and governments communicate (Bernoff, Li, 2008). The intent of this analysis is to evaluate how social networks are changing the social responsibilities of companies, and how the ethical issues and human resource policies and strategies used are going to need to change. This change in human resources to more candor and honesty is prevalent and captured in the book Groundswell authored by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff (Bernoff, Li, 2008).

Social Networks and the Social Responsibility of Organizations

For companies, organizations and governments, their decision of which information to share, when to share it, and how much can make or break their reputations globally within minutes. Take the approach AIG took to cover up the highly leveraged investments they had, the hidden huge bonuses and the flat-out lies to Congress about being more fiscally responsible. Nowhere did AIG level with the public, its shareholders, or Congress. Rather the press reported on the major gaffes between AIG's senior management promises and the performance of their firm. Social networks bring these types of consistencies glaringly to light. Toyota on the other hand used a wide variety of communications channels, from traditional media including television, radio, to online media including their own websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter and many other social networking sites to explain how they were attacking the greatest quality problem they had faced in decades. The differences between AIG and Toyota, while both situations were dire, show how social networks are changing the politics of information in and outside of companies.

Social networks have introduced an entirely new and higher level of ethics to the use of information and knowledge within organizations and governments. The use of Web 2.0-based technologies to enable higher levels of collaboration throughout an organization is called Enterprise 2.0 (McAfee, 2006). Implicit in Enterprise 2.0 is authenticity, transparency, and trust anchoring the Web as the platform for sharing information. The Web 2.0 Meme Map (O'Reilly, 2006), which is serving as the blueprint for many of the social networking applications in use today, illustrates the key factors changing the social responsibilities, ethical issues and implications for human resources departments.

Knowledge has also had a great deal of political power associated with it in organizations (Parise, 2009). Social networks are forcing a more egalitarian-based approach to the distribution of knowledge. Only by doing this can organizations and governments become more trusted. Only through trust can any company or organization growth and prosper.

Conclusion