This case study describes how a company wanted to improve its image to its customer base. The company formed a community of practice within its employees to develop a positive image and they sought to highlight their positive impact on the community in Singapore. The company also set aside a budget for donation to nominated charities. Part of this initiative was a social media launch and campaign to highlight its support for their charities. This plan had been received very positively by its executive team, because of the projected increased brand exposure. Many employees expressed their support for the proposals for this social media release and they even proposed measures for the impact of the social media campaign along with potential market gain.
Some employees within the company had some personal reservations about this campaign, and although they were asked to provide their comments, employees were careful not to say anything as this campaign had gained widespread traction amongst the high-level executives. As a consequence, there were internal conflicts where individuals decided they had no opportunity to voice their concerns and they resigned from the company. Some employees who were not so fortunate to find other employment remained quiet, but felt they were dis-empowered and unable to voice their opinions, and felt socially isolated.
As it turned out, the company was heavily criticised on social media at the launch of the campaign. Members of the public flooded the company’s social media page with complaints about the company disrespect towards the charity and accused the company of being hypocritical in their intentions. The accusations were about the use of a charity to increase their market share. The company was accused company did not have any plan to respond and this vitriolic attack came as a surprise. The company shut down its social media page and withdrew from the campaign.
You have been engaged by the company to do a study on this failed campaign and to write a report. The purpose of this is to enable the company to learn from what occurred and for proposals to be considered to avoid this situation.
Prepare a report, to your executives, highlighting to them some of the points of view that may not have been considered in their campaign.
Your report should be 2500 words maximum, excluding references and appendices.
As a guide, you should consider these points:
- Propose a risk management framework that may be incorporated into future projects at planning stage;
- using Neohumanism as one of the two conflict based perspectives, explain the methodology for avoiding, as best as possible, individual employees from being partisan to this conflict;
- using Radical Structuralist the second conflict based perspective, explain in your report why there is a predicable negative backlash from the public against this marketing campaign;
- propose a set of questions that the project teams may ask in the future, to avoid the pressure in individuals;
- make well argued proposals, that are well grounded in literature, that would help future campaigns;
- .demonstrate your ability to research this topic through the identification of at least 10 journal articles to support your work.