The main problems of Facebook and acquired by Zuckerberg companies are the protection of data and privacy, manipulation of behavior through these social media, and lack of personal accountability by the executives (Kinicki, 2018). The organizing framework implies person and situation factors. Personality, experience, values, skills, ethics, and others are among person factors. Situation factors include relationship quality, leadership, organizational climate, stressors, and so on. Thus, we can assume that on an individual level, it is essential to trust the founders of the acquired apps, Instagram and WhatsApp, in their decisions and keep them autonomous with regard to their impressive results. It also concerns the decision of putting “Facebook first’ people in control instead of those who developed these apps from the very beginning.
The decision-making process should be coordinated with the senior management on the group level. The decisions about privacy, data protection, and usage should be ethical and taken by the consensus among the executives and not by one person. The ignorance of the values of Koum, for instance, led to his resignation from Facebook’s board, thus, Zuckerberg lost a valuable manager. Moreover, it encouraged other senior staff members to leave the company, as it became clear that their opinions were not considered. The abovementioned facts refer to the organizational level, namely, to the human resources practices and communication.
An important outcome of complying with all these factors is customer satisfaction, as it is critical for its success and reputation. No less important factor is a team performance, its satisfaction, and cohesion as it leads to productive work. Although conflicts are unavoidable in all organizations, they should be adequately addressed with adherence to ethics, individual and group values, and effective communication. Facebook’s executives should probably follow this advice to improve their reputation concerning data and privacy protection, and hence, increase their accountability.
References
Kinicki, A. (2019). Organizational Behavior: A Practical, Problem-Solving Approach. McGraw Hill.