Organizational Analysis Report: Social Media and Brand Image

This report presents an organizational analysis focused on managing reputational risk in the context of social media. The study examines how social media influences brand image and organizational value, considering factors like employee morale, customer loyalty, and community practices. It high...Read More

Organizational analysis
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1. Table of Contents
2. Introduction.......................................................................................................................2
1.1 Problem Statement.......................................................................................................2
3. Methodology......................................................................................................................2
4. Literature Review.............................................................................................................4
5. The objectives....................................................................................................................5
6. Research questions:..........................................................................................................5
7. Research design.................................................................................................................7
8. Solution Development and Proposal...............................................................................7
9. Discussions and Conclusions............................................................................................9
10. References........................................................................................................................10
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2. Introduction
The purpose of this study is to lead an organization with a framework for managing
reputational risk. The reputation of the organization is considered as the stakeholders’
perception of the company that determines the organizational value. The reputation of a
company is defined by the brand image which enables the company to attract more
employees, customers and shareholders. The study analyses the elements that governs the
organizational reputations like employee morale, community practice, customers’ loyalty etc.
The reputation of a company is determined by social media indicator as it is engaged in their
marketing toolbox. The social media represents the perception of the stakeholders by
empowering them to say their views. The current business described in the case study is
negatively criticized in their social media campaign which weakens their brand image, rather
the position. The following report review the literature, analyses the findings and proposes
framework to the company.
1.1 Problem Statement
 The firm is concerned with the influence of social media affecting the brand image
and consequently the company bottom-line.
 Threat of social media on an organization determined by the degree of interaction of
employees on the social media campaign.
 The risk of employee management on social media.
3. Methodology
Which two paradigms will you use to analyses the problem?
The study uses the ‘Neohumanism’ paradigms and the ‘Radical Structuralist Paradigm’ for
analyzing the problems.
‘Neohumanism’ paradigm
Neohumanism is an anti-organizational concept of social studies. It is also termed as Radical
humanism. This paradigm gives answers to the subjects of radical change, modes of
domination, emancipation, deprivation and potentiality. The neohumanism analyses these
subjects through subjective lenses. This paradigm outlines the principle of human
consciousness; it sees the ideology of individual human being as an independent persona
irrespective of his macro distinctions. Smircich (1983) refutes the argument claimed in
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neohumanism theory as he describes human consciousness cannot transform the reality or
bring social schanges. It adopts nominalistic, antipositivistic, voluntaristic and ideographic
views for analyzing social conflicts. The purpose of the neohumanism paradigm study in
organizational analysis is reflected on the reconciliation of the social organization ad
individual freedom. The concept of neohumnaism is developed by Manabendra Nath Roy. He
claims that the party politics radically changes the perception and assumption; behind the
party-politics, there is a presence of humanism which lead to this radical changes. The radical
humanism or neohumanism perspective supports the people to remodel their own perception
on reality and take actions based on that. This paradigm is named on ‘humanism’ as it
concentrates on the studies of human needs and circumstances.
Methodology for avoiding, as best as possible, individual employees from being partisan to
this conflict:
This study reflects on the partisan conflicts among employees and organization which led
them to negative brand image in social media as they prefer not to disclose their individual
thoughts in public. The operating country of the company, described in the case study, has
multiple political parties. The political disagreement of the employees of the chosen
organization led them to hide their views on the community practice issue, campaigned in
social media, as there were controversies of ideology and the employees hesitate to open their
mind in front of the top-ranking executives present in the campaign. This study finds that the
neohuman paradigm which identifies the individual’s ideology or consciousness can also
impact on the social change (Hatch and Schultz 2010). For example, the employees’ avoiding
of support on a political view turns into an economic result by creating negative brand image.
So, the radical social change does not always lies on the structure of the society, rather the
ideology of individual people motivates the social change.
Radical Structuralist Paradigm
According to the perspective of ‘Radical structuralism paradigm’, human actions are
predefined by the socio-economic contradiction. As structuralism stressed on the objective
reality of the social structure, radical structuralism analyses the macro elements of social
structure such as race, religion, class or culture. According to this paradigm radical change is
the part of social reality which is inevitable. This paradigm outlines the concept of radical
change, modes of domination, emancipation, deprivation and potentiality. Unlike the
neohumanism, it has objective perception of societies (He et al. 2016). The radical
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structuralism paradigm adopts the perspectives of realist, positivist, determinist and
nomothetic views. Radical structuralism is not confined in ecological theory of identifying
macro levels of society; it throws light on the social identities, hierarchies, disparity of
capitals and also the disparity between the elite class and larger populations. According to
Hassard (1991), radical structuralism paradigm helps to develop Marxist’s approach which
empowers the working class in their battle against the dominance of capitalist class. In the
organizational context, the two classes are the labours or workforce group and the managers.
Predicable negative backlash from the public against this marketing campaign:
This study reflects on the problem of social media influence and social media interaction. The
emerging of social media in a particular culture shapes the social behavior, point of views and
identities of individual entities. The society perceives or judges the reality or social image
based on the model designed by media. Social media is shaping the common culture of a
community by creating media stories, myths, symbols and resources (Holsapple et al. 2014).
Influenced by the media driven identities of capitalists, people judges the organizations
negatively who are selfish. In the current case study, the social media users accuses the
organization as they are using charity for their own market share, and mislead their
humanitarian interests. The term backlash defines the negative reaction of a group or
community. The topic of popular community practices, like diversity, inclusiveness, equity
once were confined in industrial discussion which now comes out in social media, a
discussion topic of common people. The case study provides a similar picture where the
company adopts a community practice and raises social media campaign on it. As their
employees did not interact in this platform, the media users give negative backlash against
their marketing campaign (Martin and Burke, 2012). The radical structuralism paradigm
analyses the objective reality of community people as they share similar characteristics of
backlash and similar perspectives on capitalists instead of reviving their own consciousness.
4. Literature Review
The interaction of consumers in social media draws the attention of marketers and becomes a
growing concern in marketing literature. Byrd (2012) supported this view as he referred to
the changing role of the consumers. The Information technology gives autonomy to the
consumers and it leads them to shift from being passive recipient of information and adopt
the role of active information generators. Carroll (2013) opines that the consumers on social
media are changing the landscape of media and marketing as they intrude in various media
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activities like, sharing knowledge with the peers, participating in a discussion, consuming
social media content and influencing the activities of other consumers. As per Coulter et al
(2012) the social media participation of consumers are not always good for the organization
as their empowerment becomes challenging. Gatzert and Schmit (2016) added that social
media enables them to create a particular community network unlike the content sharing
communities like YouTube. Jacob (2012) explores the activities of consumers to interpret
how actively they behave in social media as they are not grouped by their similarity in
behaviour; he points out the consumers’ motive for using social network or content sharing
communities. The primary motives of using these two types of media are accessing
information, entertainment and social aspects. Gensler et al (2013) extended the research by
pointing out the consumers’ motives of entertainment, social interaction, community
networking and self-actualization. Becker et al. (2013) explains the connection between the
uses and gratifications of social media group and offline political engagement; he points out
that the information seekers are generally interested in civic activities whereas the students
are less interested in civic activities in social media platform. Rokka et al. (2014) also support
the students’ interest in engaging more comfortable zones and entertainment.
The previous research explains the marketers’ intention of social media campaign which is to
provide clear knowledge about the brand for developing strong brand image. Parsons (2013)
points out that the modern marketers change their role from one-to-many marketing
communications like Television advertisement, to turn into one to one personalized
communication through social media management. In the effort of giving personalized
service for increased brand reputation, the company gives empowerment of raising voice to
the consumers which the managers cannot ignore like traditional marketing. This resulted
into the losing of brand control by the managers (Ott and Theunissen, 2015).
5. The objectives
This paper aims to suggest a framework to avoid the key challenges of maintain brand image
in social media.
6. Research questions:
i) How the organization will manage their brand image through employees?
ii) How the political partisan of employees will affect the social media image or the
brand reputation?
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iii) How the firm will handle the social media marketing campaign when it is as
important as the economic and social performance of the firm?
Sources: created by authors
Figure 1: relationship between social media, management and brand reputation.
Figure 2: conceptual framework of research questions
Sources: created by authors
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social media
Brand
reputation
managment
How the firm will handle the
social media marketing
campaign when it is as
important as the economic and
social performance of the firm?
How the organization will
manage their brand image
through employees?
How the political partisan of
employees will affect the social
media image of the brand?

7. Research design
The research develops qualitative case study to provide contextual interpretation of the
subject matter. This research design shows the subjective experience of the main company.
The qualitative research collects non numerical data and analyses their key characteristics. It
responds to the question of why and how a particular phenomenon is happening. The
qualitative research has quite popularity in market analysis, government programs and social
programs which support the selection criteria.
8. Solution Development and Proposal
RQ 1: How the organization
will manage their brand
image through employees?
RQ 2: How the political
partisan of employees will
affect the social media image
of the brand?
RQ 3: How the firm will
handle the social media
marketing campaign when it
is as important as the
economic and social
performance of the firm?
 Investing on
employee wellbeing
and engagement
workshops.
 internalizing the
employee story on
social media
 Allow employees to
comment on their
social media
marketing.
 Set reputation risk in
their priorities
 Introduce diversity
management
 Apply social media
monitoring
 No common view
sharing
 No access to
company social pages
 Reflecting top-down
structure of the
company as the
employees hide their
views or fears the top
level executives.
 Lack of sharing the
story of employee job
satisfaction
 Set index for
employee partisan
 The non-employees
will backlash on
company’s social
media page, as they
came to know from
the employees about
the internal
ideological disparity.
 The company will be
 Reputation can be
managed by
recruiting right
people who will be
aligned with the
company’s ideology
 Recruiting people of
diverse ideology and
incorporate the
strategy of inclusion
or belongingness in
the work
environment.
 Application of right
corporate culture.
 Avoid of pushing
employees, otherwise
it will generate media
backlashes.
 Application of
regulatory policies on
social media use.
 Use of more than one
social media
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fail in attracting new
employees.
 The company will get
low rating by users.
platform.
 Adoption of new
technology and
monitoring of social
media.
The framework of brand reputation management suggests for using the social media policies
and practices as the effective means for controlling the company’s social media presence. The
framework also identifies the importance of employee wellbeing and employee engagement,
the influencing factors of company reputation (Paniagua and Sapena, 2014). Analyzing the
problem statement of this research, this framework proposes a fair treatment of employee and
enabling of open communication which can impact on the social media impression. The
current case study helps to consider the hierarchal structure of the management in the
framework. This framework suggests abolishing the top-down structure framework which is
obsolete in the era of social media. It will allow the employees to say their minds in the
presence of the managers openly and actively in social media (Reza Jalilvand and Samiei,
2012). The research emphasizes on the presence of employees on social media, even when
the company has no online presence. So the perspective, the barrier of employee and non-
employees is also impactful. The social media users can create an issue by screening the
personal life and professional life management of employees. The research finds out that the
use of only one social media platform seems less authentic by the stakeholder groups. The
research includes the use of different social media platforms which can be act as an integrated
approach (van Osch and Coursaris, 2013). From the problem statement of this research, the
framework suggests the company to allow the freedom of the employees to reflect their
personal views and styles on social media (Rokka et al. 2014). It will increase the brand value
of the company by showing their internal day to day management.
This case study solution of reputation risk management also applicable in other industries
connected with social media environment. The selected perspectives are appropriate for the
problems because it saves the company from loss of bottom line through enabling policies on
media guidelines (Suomi and Järvinen, 2013). Also, it answers how the employees will be
treated and how much freedom they will be given for interacting in social media.
The risk of avoiding these perspectives will result into lack of social interaction of
employees, misleading brand information to the consumers, backlash of consumers, affecting
of company bottom line etc. For example, disobeying of the framework perspective of
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applying social media policy will give freedom to the consumers to give negative comments
against the company (Becker et al. 2013). Using one social media platform will create risk of
sharing the comments of only one community while using multiple social media platform can
save the company from negative attack by balancing.
9. Discussions and Conclusions
The research offers a literature review for the brand management practices of the companies
on social media in relation to the employee behavior and role of social media as generating
information from the case study. The research considers the perspective of employees as they
are the key-builder of reputation on social media. The study creates paradoxes and
contradiction on social media management such as the activities between no online presence
and active online presence; encouraging employees and strictly stopping them from
participating; Top-down management vs flexible behaviors towards employees; employees’
personal social media profile vs. professional media role. The suggested framework balances
these contradictions effectively, though the study recommends for continuously manage the
framework for future changes.
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10. References
References
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reputation on social networks: when sites are not enough. Global Business and Economics
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International Journal, 17(3), pp.241-254.
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Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
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