国际商务管理dissertation Facebook对全球商业环境的影响分析

如今，社交网站在新一代因特网上的使用是很常见的。现在，最流行的拥有最多用户使用的社交网站是脸谱网Facebook，它的创办人是马克•扎克伯格。Facebook创办于2004年，一开始只提供给大学生使用（用户需要用一个有效的大学电子邮件地址注册），后来它渐渐对高中生、企业、区域网络和世界各地的任何用户开放，直到现在Facebook已经拥有超过500百万个活跃用户（如何把facebook用于商业，没有日期）。下面的图表显示了Facebook从2004年到2010年的发展。
 

该图显示，facebook的活跃用户从2004年到2010年在不断增长。到目前为止，facebook已经有超过5亿个活跃用户，在未来它还将不断增加 (Facebook的发展，2010年)。
 

用户可以在Facebook上添加好友，与他人分享自己的信息、分享照片视频、玩flash游戏，也可以创建博客。facebook不仅仅是大学生或个人与别人分享自己的信息或其他东西的平台，也有越来越多的企业将它用在许多方面，如树立品牌形象或声誉、宣布新产品、从别人那获得关于产品的反馈、吸引员工、分享公司信息、建立与现有的和潜在的客户的关系等(凯斯勒，2009年)。
 

Now a day, the social networking is very common to use on internet in the new generation. Today, the most popular most users social networking is the Facebook which is created by Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook was started in the year 2004 which was only available to college students (requiring users to sign up with a valid university email address), after that it opened up to high school students, corporations, regional networks, or any user across the world and now it have over 500 millios of active users (How to Use Facebook for Business, no date). Diagram below show that the rise of the Facebook from 2004 to 2010.
 

The diagram show that the Facebook active users are keep increasingly from year 2004 to 2010. Until now, there are over 500 million active users and it will continuously increase in the future (The Rise of Facebook, 2010).
 

The Facebook users can use the Facebook to add friends, share their information with others, share photos, videos as well as to play flash games and also can create a blog. Facebook is not just for the college students or for individual to share their information or other things with the others only, it is also increasingly being used by companies in many ways such as build up the brand image or reputation, to announce the new products, get the feedback about the product from others, attracts employees, share the company information, keep the interaction to build up the relationships with current and prospective customers and etc (Kessler, 2009).
 

Next, this assignment is going to discuss about the positive and negative impacts of the Facebook and how the Facebook’s impacts affect on global business environment.
 

The company’s brand reputation and corporate image are very important to success the business. In this generation, a company not just can build up their brand reputation or corporate image through the television, radio magazine or newspaper; they also can build up their brand reputation or corporate image through the social network such as Facebook. The social network play a very important role to a company to keep the close interacts with customers. For example, the company can post about feature of the product, the new product that had been launched, activities, services, sales or promotion through the Facebook to the customers. So, the customers will know about the new activity or news of the company very fast. Besides that, the company also can get the comments, suggestion or feedback from the customers to have some reform or changes. With the good services and interaction with the customers, the company can build up their brand reputation and corporate image very fast.
 

One of the examples that build up the brand reputation and corporate image through the social network are Bonobos. Bonobos is an online clothing retailer which is only sell men’s clothes, pants, bags, belts shoes and etc. They have an active Facebook community to share the new information or products with the customers. Besides that, they also will encourage their employees to keep the close interact with the customers. Bonobos will recruit the new customers with the tactic of any new customers can get $50 off with the first order of $100. On the other hand, they also allow for all products to be returned at any time and no need the customers to pays for shipping on returns (Zeigler, 2011). This is the way how the Bonobos build up their brand reputation with the tactics and the interaction with customers.
 

吸引全球商业合作伙伴———Attract global business partners
 

Facebook is a international social network which is known by everyone. So, it also can attract global business partner. For example, some company will create a Facebook Fans Page to let their fans know the latest updates of their products or service. The more famous that company, the more fans its gain. There are also some companies that create some competition and let their fans join it. The people who gain more likes on their photo will be able to win a product of their company. This also will help them promote their company and gain more fans through the advertising. After the fans spreading out the news to worldwide, the company will become more famous and it will help the company will attract the global business partners.
 

For example, an advertising company keeps on posting their production to their Facebook Fans Page. The fans will share the good production to their profile and let their friends from whole world to see it. After everyone keep on sharing and giving the good comments to their production, it will attract some company feel interest to shoot for new advertisement after saw the production. They will contact the advertising company through the contact information from the Facebook. That’s show how company attract the potential global business partners through Facebook.
 

One of the examples of global business partner is Facebook and Microsoft Corp. At the year of 2007, Facebook and Microsoft Corp. announced that the two companies would expand their advertising partnership. Under the expanded strategic alliance, Microsoft will be exclusive third- party advertising platform partner for Facebook, and it will begin to sell advertising for Facebook internationally in addition to the United States (Facebook and Microsoft Expand Strategic Alliance, 2007).
 

The other example of global business partner is Facebook and Warner Bros. At the March of 2011, Warner Bros announced that they have starting delivering movies through Facebook. The movie can be rent for 30 Facebook Credits or $3. President of Warner Bros said that making their films available through Facebook is a natural extension of their digital distribution efforts. It gives consumers a simple, convenient way to access and enjoy the films through the world’s largest social network. For Facebook, it is another good way to establish Facebook Credits as an important online currency. Besides that, with more than 600 million active users, Facebook become a serious competitor to digital distribution companies such as Hulu and Netflix (Musil, 2011).
 

了解跨文化的消费者购买行为———Understand the Cross-Culture of Consumer Buying Behavior
 

Facebook is the most biggest and famous social network in the world. So, it is a good place that provide the chance to the company to understand and analyse the cross-culture of consumer buying behavior through the cross-national effect from Facebook. For example, the company can explore alternative explanations in the online purchase intentions model of the customers through the Facebook. On the other hand, it also helps the marketer know about the consumer’s similarity or different between the country on their buying behavior. So, the marketer can change or use the more suitable marketing strategies to attract the different nation of customer.
 

There are some research using international samples suggest that there are consumer differences in shopping attitudes toward internet stores between relatively collectivist and individualist cultures. For example, the marketer or company can analyse the different cultural dimensions of Korea and UK via social network like Facebook. Korean online consumers utilize, search for, and depend on, service information quality more than their Western counterparts in the UK. However Westerns had less directed search and depended more on their internal knowledge and personal experience with products or sevices. It show that the different of repurchasing between Korean and UK consumers (Hong, Muthaly and Akamavi, 2008).
 

工作绩效的影响———Affect the Performance of Working
 

Facebook is not just an entertainment that provides the users to share their photos, video, and information to the others; it is also provide the online games such as Café World, Hotel City, Baking Life and etc. Although those online games will bring the entertainment to the users, but it is also will affect the working performance of the users. When the working hours, the users will keep on chatting or play the games through Facebook at the workplace and it will make them can’t concentrate to their work because they spend a lot of time on Facebook more than their work. They will feel that play the online game or chatting is more important than their work. In this situation, it will bring a lot of negative impact to the company such as a loss of productivity for the whole company.
 

According to the survey of The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham), the employees of India questioned in the survey say that they spent on average an hour a day on the social networking sites like Facebook, and it leading to a loss in productivity of nearly 12.5%. The survey was based on 4000 office employees from the age of 21 to 60 in the India (India Survey Says Facebook Affects Productivity, 2009). Through the survey of Assocham, it proved that the social networking such as the Facebook will affect the performance of employees when they are working.
 

网上业务的负面宣传———Negative Publicity Hits Online Business
 

Although the company can promote their business through the Facebook to increase their sales, but the negative publicity can hits the online business through spreading the rumors. By spreading the rumors, it may affect the sales of the business and also the reputation and the image of the comapny. When the business competitors or customers spread the wrong rumors or the negative comments to the product that launched by the company through the internet, with the global connectivity of internet, those negative impacts can spread out very fast and also can destroy an entire business in a short time (King, 2011). After that, the business will overtake by the others similar product of company or competitor.
 

According to the survey of Consumer Reports State of the Net survey in the year 2010, the Consumer Reports estimates that 5.1 million households with internet access have experienced some type of abuse on social networking sites in the past year, including malware infections, scams, and harassment. (Cara Garretson, 2010)
 

安全风险———Security Risks
 

Facebook is a place that can bring the benefits to the company, but the company also must take the risks of the security. For example, the company needs to take the risk of hacker hacked in to the company’s network to steal the company data. Furthermore, the company also needs to take the risks of the spam attacks, pishing attacks and the identity theft that spread out the malware that can damage the company reputation. Some colleagues will sharing too much company information or activity on Facebook and it maybe will spread out the company security imformation to others competitor. So, security is very important to a company; without the security, it may affect the company.
 

According to the Sophos Security Threat Report 2011, the social network which is massive and committed user base like Facebook is targeted by scammers and malware purveyors. Diagram below show that the list of social network about security risk.
 

Diagram 2: List of Social Network About Security Risk
 

Source: Sophos Survey December 2010
 

Diagram 2 show that the Facebook is the top of the biggest risk to security which is 61% compared to others social network. The second is My Space which is 18%, third is Twitter which is 17% and the last is LinkedIn which is 4%.
 

Besides that, the survey also show that the social net work spam, pishing and malware also keep increasing by year to year. Diagram below show the survey of social network spam, pishing and malware from April 2009 to December 2010.
 

Diagram 3: Social Network Spam, Pishing and Malware from April 2009 to December 2010.
 

Source: Sophos Survey December 2010
 

At 2010, there are 67% have been spammes via social networking (increase 33.6% since April 2009) , 43% have been on the receiving end of pishing attacks (22% since April 2009) and 40% of social networking users have been sent malware sites via social networking (increase 18.8% since April 2009). It show that the spam, pishing and malware are keep increasing from the years 2009 to 2010 and it aslo will increase in the future.
 

Besides that, the survey also said that the scale of malicious activity on Facebook appears may be out of control and it may attacks against the business (Security Threat Report 2011, 2011).
 

结论———Conclusion
 

Facebook have bring many benefits to the global business enviroment in the different ways. It help the company to build up the brand reputation with the good sevices and interacting with the consumers. It also provide the opportunities to the company to attract the global business partner to earn more gain and help the marketer to understand the cross-culture consumer buying behavior to attract different nation of customer. So, Facebook is a place that has the unlimited potentiol for a business.
 

Otherwise, Facebook also bring the different negative impacts to the global business enviroment. It will affects the working performance of the users and then cause the loss of the productivity of a company. It also can hits the online business through spreading the rumors and affect a company into security risks such as spam, pishing and malware.
 

In the conclusion, Facebook have its strengths and weaknesses. It can bring the positive impacts to the global business enviroment to success a business, but it also can bring the negative impacts to the global business enviroment. So, need to find some methods to reduce the negative impacts of Facebook.