Fundamentals of Human Resource Management 5th Edition by Raymond Noe, John Hollenbeck, Barry Gerhart, Patrick Wright

Exercise 9

WHAT BOUNDARIES SHOULD EMPLOYERS SET FOR SOCIAL MEDIA?
As more and more millennials enter the labor force, more of an organization's employees will have grown up with the Internet and social media. These employees are unlikely to comprehend being separated from their mobile devices or Internet access. They expect to be able to send a quick text, post a status update (a tweet) on Twitter, or reward themselves with a funny video after wrapping up a report. And as these technologies become mainstream, more of their older colleagues share this attitude.
Employers, in contrast, have tended to greet each new social-media application as a new form of time wasting. Organizations are under intense pressure to improve their performance month after month, and the thought of employees checking out photos on Face-book while at work horrifies many managers. In this view, most uses of social media amount to theft of time from employers, not a reasonable break or a valuable way to stay connected to co-workers and customers as well as family and friends.
Recently, the Ethics Resource Center added to managers' discomfort with a study showing that employees categorized as "active social networkers" are much more likely than their co-workers to say they experience pressure to compromise ethical standards. And when asked about ethically questionable actions, such as taking home company software or keeping personal copies of confidential company information for future career use, the active social networkers are more likely to say these actions are acceptable.
Why do you think the heavy social-media users surveyed by the Ethics Resource Center were more likely than other employees to believe employees are justified in making personal use of company software and confidential data? How would you respond to that attitude if you were a human resource manager?