Analyzing Ethical Issues: Yelp Employee Case & Social Media Policies

This case study delves into the ethical considerations surrounding a former Yelp employee's social media post and subsequent termination. The analysis identifies key ethical issues, primarily whether employees' social media posts constitute 'free speech' and whether the termination was justified. It explores the cause of the ethical concern, noting the absence of a clear social media policy at Yelp. Ethical theories, including Utilitarian, Deontological, and Communitarian perspectives, are applied to analyze the situation. The study also uses methods like Reflective Equilibrium and Arguments by Analogy to evaluate the ethical dimensions of the case, considering the ethics of care in interpersonal relationships. This comprehensive analysis provides insights into the complexities of business ethics in the digital age.

S U B M I T T E D B Y:
Ethics in Business

What is business ethics

Characteristics of business ethics

Significance of business ethics
 It helps in corresponding to basic human needs.
 It helps in creating credibility among the general public.
 It helps in creating credibility among the employees of an
organization.
 It helps in better decision making.
 It helps in the protection of the society.
 It helps in increasing the profitability of an organization

Identified Case of ethical concern
An employee who worked at Yelp, which is an
influential online review company wrote an
open letter to the CEO of the company and also
posted it on Twitter complaining regarding
how she was underpaid in the company and
how she was facing difficulties in coping up
with that inadequate source of income due to
which the company terminated her service also
due to which she received severe backslash
from various sources.
Link to the case- https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/true-stories/former-yelp-employee-talia-jane-on-how-
complaint-letter-destroyed-my-life/news-story/4465f60f8356d25011f88d0530e180ef?from=rss-basic

Ethical issues which arises from the case
 The most important ethical issue which arises from the case
is that whether social media posts of the employees of a
company are counted as “free speech?
 The other ethical issue which arise from the case is that
whether the termination of the employee by the company was
justified or not as the behaviour of the employee cannot be
considered as a disloyal conduct as she was protesting for
being underpaid.

Definition of ethical concern
As opined by Neesham & Gu (2015) an
ethical concern is defined as a problem or
concern in which an organization or a person
has to choose between alternatives which
must be evaluated as ethical or unethical in
nature.

Cause of ethical concern in the case
The cause of ethical concern in the case is that
the employee got terminated from her job even
though there was no separate social media
policy of Yelp in place which laid down
guidelines regarding posts to be made by the
employees while working for the organization.
In this case it is observed that social media
posts of employees are not counted as “free
speech” even in the absence of social media
policies of company.

Ethical Theories
Utilitarian or consequence based theory
Deontological or duty based theory
Communitarian or community based theory

Utilitarian or consequence based theory

Deontological or duty based theory

Communitarian or community based
theory
Under the Communitarian theory the source of ethics does not
come from the happiness of the individual or the utility
generated to the greatest number of individuals and is neither
centred on the rights of individuals over the rights of the whole.
Rather the Communitarian view is that the moral thinking of
individuals has its source in the historical traditions of
particular communities.

Method of applying ethical theories
Reflective Equilibrium- As stated by May,
Luth & Schwoerer (2014) it is a process of
moral reasoning which allows individuals and
organizations to generate considered moral
judgement about a situation from a wide
variety of initial beliefs and intuitions.
Arguments by Analogy- This process
proceeds by finding some cases which can be
used to form a moral judgement about which
is relevantly similar to the problem case.

Ethics of care
As stated by Susong (2013) the Ethics of Care
is a normative ethical theory which is of the
view that moral action depends on
interpersonal relationships and care or
benevolence as a virtue.

References