The idea is to create a discussion-like atmosphere among students.

  

The idea is to create a discussion-like atmosphere among students. Please note that replies such as “I like what you said,” “That’s a good comment,” and “I disagree with your comment” do not count as a complete reply. You must substantiate these general statements by stating specific reasons that support your opinions, adding additional, relevant thoughts, and/or providing alternative ideas. Replies to your peers should also use credible, external sources. Each reply must use APA formatted in text citation and must have APA style references at the end of the post. Courtesy in any disagreement is expected; thus, personal attacks are not acceptable and will affect your grade. References are required in the responses to the peers posts.  

Post 1

COVID-19 and the United States

The emergence and spread of the coronavirus affected the global economy and other aspects of life. Businesses were either shut down or forced to invest in teleworking. For manufacturing companies that depend hugely on on-site operations, this pandemic posed a great danger that could have long-term impacts on their future and overall sustainability. In particular, measures such as lockdown and social distancing limited people’s mobility and the number of personnel that could be allowed at any workstation. For Tesla, such measures meant that its operations would significantly be affected. Tesla is one of the most successful companies in the automobile industry. Under Elon Musk’s leadership, the company has positioned itself at a better competitive position, recording high amounts of profit, and being a leader in innovative practices such as electric cars and autonomous driving vehicles (Niedermeyer, 2019). During the pandemic, Tesla faced controversies over how it handled its operations in compliance with safety measures to curb the spread and subsequent effects of COVID-19.

Tesla and The Controversy Regarding Its Management Approach To COVID-19 Pandemic

As the company’s CEO, Elon Musk continuously downplayed risks associated with the coronavirus, both at its onset and prevalence. In late May 2020, while Alameda County officials were holding negations with the firm to resume its operations on the 18th of the same month, Musk defied the local order. It reopened its operations on the 11th (Marshall, 2020). Apart from defying local government order, his actions were against the governor’s demand for California during the global crisis (Marshall, 2020). Although it was later approved to reopen, going against the local and municipal orders regarding the management of the coronavirus pandemic placed Tesla in the spotlight of public criticism over its priorities that seem not to value the employees’ wellbeing the general community. This is not the first case where Tesla makes headlines for not complying with safety measures. According to Stumpf (2019), Tesla’s Fremont factory recorded three times more OSHA violations from 2014 to 2018 than the top ten U.S. automobile firms combined.

How Strategic Leaders Should Address the Identified Issue

In response to the above situation, strategic leaders need to ensure their actions that fulfill their organization’s and professional mandate, improve their performance, and add value in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. In response to the controversies, Tesla published an in-depth plan for bringing workers back to work and ensuring their safety. However, CNBC reports indicate that some workers raised concerns over issues such as Tesla firing some employees who raise the alarm over faulty precautions at its Fremont factories (Crum, 2020). Also, three more employees from the same factory were terminated from their jobs after they stayed home over fears of contracting COVID-19 despite the CEO giving employees the freedom to stay at home if they developed such fears (Crum, 2020).

Situations in Which Top-Down Planning is likely To Be Superior to Bottom-Up Emergent Strategy Development

Choosing between top-down planning and bottom-up planning requires that a manager consider several factors. Some of the factors include the nature of the business and the available resources (Cole & Sneider, 2020). An instance where top-down planning may be superior to bottom-up planning is when the firm’s management is mandated to provide a framework plan with company goals.

Post 2

 The model Facebook was first dispatched in 2004. Facebook is a known as an American online social media, and it is now the most mainstream social media platform in today’s world. However, it has gone under a ton of examination these recent years, with the latest being its strategies on directing content, for instance, hateful remarks, and misinformation. For example, according to cnn.com, Facebook representatives organized a virtual walkout following the organization’s carelessness on a line of disputable posts from President Donald Trump, checking one that stated, “When the plundering beginnings, the shooting begins,”. As indicated by nytimes.com, Mark Zuckerberg met with his representatives to talk about the reason behind why he chose not to make a move on Donald Trump’s posts, but rather he wasn’t persuading enough, he left the workers disappointed, which thus prompted a few organizations, for example, Coca Cola, Unilever, Patagonia, The North Face to join the ad boycott (a boycott where significant organizations quit publicizing on Facebook).

On June 28, Facebook stock fell 3% which I remembered vividly because I invest in stocks on robin hood and I had a fakebook stock and this made me lose money that day. The boycott then sent a message to Mark Zuckerberg and investors like me. As a result of Facebook stock losing value, Mark Zuckerberg decided to meet with civil rights activists to talk over the requests of the boycott, but the civil rights activists were also left unsatisfied with Zuckerberg’s response. 

The situation could have been avoided if Mark Zuckerberg had taken actions early. The wrongful and unfortunate deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd has left the whole country in shambles which led to many protests and riots across the country so, of course people would use social media as a tool to spread hate and add more fuel to the fire. As the founder and CEO of the biggest social media platform in the world, Mark Zuckerberg should have predicted this and taken the necessary and appropriate measures to stop it. He could use a top-down planning approach to address the problem, meet up with all the executives of Facebook, discuss how to prevent it, make sure everyone is on the same page at the top level, then make their way down to the bottom and get everyone that is a part of the company on the same page. Unfortunately, he was too distressed about losing racist customers, and that led to bigger problems that he must face now. An action that Mark Zuckerberg can take is to use a bottom-up strategy planning approach by hiring civil rights activists, experts of the field, use them to educate Facebook employees about certain subjects, start with regular workers, then the managers, directors, executives, even the CEO. Facebook is facing a lot of controversial issues that could have been avoided or taken care of, but it is never too late to resolve it. There is still hope and where there is a will, there is a way. 

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