PLUS Model Applied to Social Media Ethics in the Workplace
This paper examines the ethical dilemma posed by social media use in organizational settings, applying the seven-step PLUS Ethical Decision-Making Model as a structured framework. It defines the core problem — balancing employee privacy, confidentiality, and productivity against the marketing and communication benefits of social media — then identifies and evaluates three primary policy alternatives: a full ban, unrestricted use, or a professional-personal separation approach. The paper ultimately recommends the third alternative and outlines implementation strategies, including written policies, legal compliance (such as HIPAA adherence), and employee communication. Evaluation methods such as surveys and return-on-investment analysis are also discussed.
- Introduction: Social media as a workplace ethical dilemma
- Defining the Problem and Seeking Guidance: Risks, confidentiality breaches, and policy resources
- Identifying and Evaluating Alternatives: Three policy options weighed for pros and cons
- Making and Implementing the Decision: Recommending professional-personal separation with written policy
- Evaluating the Decision and Conclusion: Surveys and ROI as evaluation measures
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What makes this paper effective
- It applies a concrete, named framework — the PLUS Ethical Decision-Making Model — step by step, giving the analysis clear structure and academic grounding.
- It presents multiple policy alternatives with explicit pros and cons before committing to a recommendation, demonstrating balanced reasoning rather than advocacy from the outset.
- It grounds the discussion in real-world organizational concerns (HIPAA compliance, brand risk, productivity) that connect abstract ethics to practical management decisions.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates structured ethical analysis through systematic application of a multi-step decision-making model. Rather than offering an opinion and supporting it, the author works through problem definition, resource identification, alternative generation, comparative evaluation, and implementation — a technique that mirrors professional ethics audit processes and is appropriate for applied ethics coursework.
Structure breakdown
The paper follows the seven steps of the PLUS model as its organizing logic. Steps 1–2 establish context and resources; Steps 3–4 form the analytical core with three alternatives evaluated on advantages and disadvantages; Steps 5–6 deliver the recommendation and its implementation requirements; Step 7 closes with an evaluation strategy. This mirrors a policy memo structure and keeps argument flow tightly aligned with the chosen framework.
Introduction
Ethical dilemmas arise when a circumstance requires one to choose among alternatives that generate a conflict of values among various organizational stakeholders. One of the major contemporary ethical dilemmas is the use of social media. In today's organizational setting, and given the rapid advancement of technology, social media has become a significant business marketing tool and a fundamental part of employees' professional lives (Massotte, 2017). The evolving nature of social media means it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between personal and professional use within the organization. This paper examines this ethical dilemma using the PLUS Ethical Decision-Making Model as a guide.
Defining the Problem and Seeking Guidance
Step 1: Define the problem. The first step of the model involves defining the problem. The most important stage in any decision-making process is determining why a decision is required and identifying the desired outcomes (Ethics & Compliance Initiative, 2018). Despite the numerous benefits that social media brings to organizations, several risks remain associated with its use, including the misappropriation of organizational resources, conflicts of interest, and the vilification of others. It also creates opportunities for breaches of confidentiality. An additional concern is whether an organization's use of social media to monitor employee conduct and behavior is itself ethical.
Step 2: Seek out relevant assistance, guidance, and support. The second phase involves identifying resources that may be helpful in making the decision. In this case, the relevant resources include professional guidelines, organizational policies, and codes of conduct that delineate the ethical standards organizations and their employees ought to follow.
Identifying and Evaluating Alternatives
Step 3: Identify alternatives. The key to this phase is to identify as many solutions as possible to the problem at hand. There are several distinct alternatives for managing social media use within the organizational setting:
1. Prohibit the use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in the workplace entirely.
2. Encourage employees to use social media in the workplace without any restrictions.
3. Separate professional from personal use.
Step 4: Evaluate the alternatives. This phase emphasizes evaluating each alternative and assessing the potential positive and negative consequences of each (Ethics & Compliance Initiative, 2018).
The first alternative is to prohibit employees from using social media platforms in the workplace altogether. The main advantage of this approach is that the company avoids ethical problems related to employee privacy and online vilification. However, the key shortcoming is that excluding social media from the corporate environment means the organization forfeits the numerous advantages social media can offer (Stafford, 2016).
The second alternative is to fully encourage and permit social media use within the workplace. The primary advantage is that the organization can capitalize on the full range of social media benefits, including increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, and boosting sales. Despite these benefits, the main drawback is that fully unrestricted social media use exposes the organization to the risk of facilitating wrongful business practices and activities that may have an adverse impact on the business. Information posted by employees can be damaging to the organization (Stafford, 2016).
The third alternative is separating professional use from personal use. The strength of this approach is that the company can capitalize on social media during work hours while simultaneously limiting personal use during those same hours. Personal use that does occur during working hours can be redirected toward promoting awareness of the corporate brand. The shortcoming of this approach is that distinguishing between professional and personal use can be vague and ambiguous (Zgheib, 2014).
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