Management Information Systems
3/26/13

Chapter One Case Study One 1) What do you think of Stacy Snyder’s story? Should she be denied a degree for publicly endorsing drinking to her underage students? To what extent do you believe that potential employers should explore social networking sites to validate the “goodness” of potential employees? Is there anything of your facebook page that might turn off potential employers? If so, are you going to take any action? I think that her case wasn’t handled properly because I don’t feel that it was fitting to deny her, her degree. That was the extreme consequence she could have faced and it shouldn’t have been taken that far. They could have easily told her to take it off or just tell her to make her profile private so that her students wouldn’t be able to see her profile. She should have gotten her degree because she did everything required to do so. Although she may not get a job from an employer who sees that picture, she should still get her degree from the school. I think that employers should have the full extent of looking at peoples social networks. Just because they’ll have a couple pictures of them drinking or attending parties does not mean that they will not benefit your company. It only means that some people are more open about their social life and willing to share that with the world. As long as you are able to take care of the work at your job and help your employers, what you do on your leisure time shouldn’t affect anything. There is nothing currently on my Facebook because I cleaned it all up last year when I started learning how it can affect my future employment opportunities. 2) The webcasting of funerals is an interesting example of the flatness of the world. Is this an invasion of privacy or do next-of-kin have the right to make such a decision? What other significant events in a person’s life might be suitable for webcasting? Identify at least three such events and then do some research to determine if webcasting of those events is already taking place.
I don’t think at all that this is invasion of privacy if the family says that is okay for them to do so. It might even be beneficial if friends and families from other states cannot get there for whatever reasons. I think that three events that should be webcasted are Marriages, births, and sporting events. Surprisingly they actually have done webcasting for all of the above. The birth webcasting’s are more personal though and I’m pretty sure not just anyone can see them. For sporting events I was talking of sporting events more for kids. Sometimes relatives that live far away would want to see their younger family members play but can’t because of the distance.

3) Osama Bin Laden represents a very dark image for most Americans. His participation in the planning of the September 11th attacks will forever mark him as evil. Should people. Like Rashard Mendenhall, who make positive or perhaps even neutral comments about terrorists like Bin Laden be fired from endorsement contracts? Can making such comments be considered grounds for termination of employment? Maybe dismissal from your school as a student? This is a very difficult subject to comment on because I remember hearing about this story with Mr. Mendenhall but, from a business standpoint everything they did, I would’ve done. Saying comments like that on social networks when you are followed by hundreds of thousands of people reflects you and any company you work for. Even if it’s just your opinion, like it was in this case, he still reflected the company and people might think differently of his company. It may cause people to think that is what the company thinks of the situation. I do not however think its grounds for dismissal from a school though. 4) Very few people would question the service and commitment of military personnel to our country. The two sergeants who created the YouTube video openly criticized delta Airlines for its charging of baggage fees to military personnel. Is the open form of criticism of businesses and their practices acceptable? Will it help businesses be more accountable to customers? Yes it’s acceptable because people should be able to see how customers are criticizing a company. If they are not allowed to see some of the potential problems they could end up facing how would they really know if they wanted to purchase from them. Plus with the bad criticism good will come. Yes it will help businesses more accountable to their customers because they will have to fix the problems and know what they’re doing well so that they can continue to do so. 5) The use of Facebook (or any other social networking site) can truly make a person’s life transparent, available for the whole world to see. Should there be legislating regulation the openness of your life on the internet? Can we expect society somehow to regulate this without any laws? I don’t think that there should be any type of regulation on the internet because people should be able to share with everybody whatever they want to. The more open somebody is, the more they will be willing to share. So who are we to put limits on what somebody can share to their friends, family, and the world. Not really because the only way that society will regulate what is put on the internet is if society was to be on the same page, which I feel we are not. Some people think there should be limits while others do not. Everybody is brought up on their own communities norms and values, which will determine what they think is socially fitting.