Case Study on Business Ethics: Facebook – Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal

Facebook is an American social media company providing social networking services to people around the world. It was founded in 2004. Mark Zuckerberg is the Chairman and CEO of the company. People use Facebook to stay connected to their friends and family and to share and express their views. Recently Facebook’s data privacy scandal came into limelight where Facebook members’ data were improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, a data mining and political strategy firm.  These data were accessed during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Cambridge Analytica accessed the data for more than 2 years. This is the biggest public relation crisis Facebook has faced. In April 2010, Facebook launched a platform called Open Graph to third party apps. This allowed the external developers to reach out to Facebook users and request permission to access their personal data. In the year 2013, Cambridge University’s researcher named Aleksandr Kogan created an App called “thisisyourdigitallife”.  The app prompted Continue reading

Understanding the Basic Concepts of Branding

Branding has emerged as one of the most important issues of modern world. In fact, it influences a multitude of spheres, including marketing, society, and even psychology. First, it is worth mentioning that nowadays creating a brand image has become of a paramount importance for the international market in general and for the major companies in specific. Secondly, branding influences the consumers as well: even though the brands are being designed and developed for people, this phenomenon also has a reverse process. For instance, while the brand products need buyers, the consumers need the products with a good brand image. The better the position of a certain brand in the international market, the greatest is the demand for it, and visa versa. Finally, brands are now proved to have a great impact on the psychology and subconsciousness of people. Thus, there is an evident interdependence of the two main components Continue reading

Essential Characteristics and Skills of Entrepreneurship

Essential Characteristics of Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is considered to be the driving force for economic and industrial growth. These growths arise from the ingenuity of business managers, leaders and administrators. Additionally, entrepreneurship is regarded to be a way of thinking that is motivated by existence of a particular opportunity. The objective of entrepreneurship is to create value. Entrepreneurship has resulted into significant transformation of the society. There are numerous attributes that make a successful entrepreneur. Some of these attributes are discussed below. 1. Self Confident Business environment is very dynamic and challenging. As a result, it is characterized by a high degree of uncertainties. For example, an entrepreneur may establish a business venture but be faced with challenges that may limit its success. However, entrepreneurs do not back off from challenges. Instead, their optimism enables them to tackle challenges head-on. Succeeding is such an environment requires one to be persevering and Continue reading

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) – Definition, Stages, Benefits, and Limitations

Life Cycle Assessment, which is abbreviated as LCA is a tool to assess the impacts caused by the environment and the resources used throughout the life cycle of the product. The life cycle starts from the acquisition of the raw materials, production process, use of the product, and finally its disposal. ISO defines Life Cycle Assessment as a collection and assessment of the efforts, products and the probable ecological impacts of a product system throughout its Lifecycle. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool developed to evaluate the products development processes as systems apply to the evaluation and analysis of environmental performance. In 1969, The Coca-Cola Company moved from glass bottles and introduced plastic bottles. They studied the environmental impacts of its packaging forming today’s LCA methodology. Four Stages of Life Cycle Assessment The four phases of LCA include scope definition and goal setting, life cycle inventory analysis, impact assessment Continue reading

4 Important Types of Intellectual Property Rights

The process of inventing or discovering the innovative and rather unique product and the focus on launching it in the future can guarantee the success of a company or a person within the market. Nevertheless, there are a lot of associated challenges. Thus, the unique idea or design can be stolen or copied. Moreover, the inventor or creator does not receive the recognition and benefits, if the product and idea are not protected with references to the intellectual properties laws. Intellectual property is one of the most controversial legal and ethical fields of management. It is the dynamic and developing area of the modern law which covers all the creations of the human mind. From this point, intellectual property can be defined as the specific concept which is used to speak about inventions, literary pieces, artistic and music works, designs, photographs, slogans, names, and symbols. The above-mentioned pieces and objects are Continue reading

Depreciation – Definition, Methods, and Tax Implications

Depreciation is a cost estimation method for accounting for the worth of a long-term asset over its useful life. Depreciation is used to spread the cost of a tangible asset over the accounting periods in which the asset is used. There are some questions surrounding this topic that are essential to explore. For instance, what are the tax implications of depreciation? What are the different depreciation methods, and how can they be used to calculate the amount? What are the best practices for managing depreciation? How does depreciation help to ensure a company’s financial health? Each of these questions will be explored in more detail to understand the concept of depreciation fully. Since antiquity, depreciation has been utilized for cost apportionment. Initially, the idea was developed by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, who believed that the value of an asset declined over time. By the 19th century, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto Continue reading