Ethics Monitoring Guidelines for Sustainable Use of Social Media by Thai Organizations

Abstract

This article aimed to develop guidelines for applying ethics to the sustainable monitoring of the use of social media in Thai organizations. The study focused on the main problems and effects of the use of social media in relation to organizational development in Thailand, selecting outstanding samples that represented policies for using social media in organizational development. The research tools were the following: 1) a questionnaire collecting data from personnel who worked with social media, and 2) in-depth interview questions collecting data from 30 organizational administrators and those who understood organizational policies on the use of social media. The data were analyzed by statistical and content analysis. The findings were twofold. First, there were problems with the lack of knowledge and understanding of usage, the dissemination of inappropriate and unethical information, and inappropriate social media systems. Second, guidelines were identified for applying ethics to the use of social media. They were the following: 1) to set social media goals and objectives by target assessment, main goal of the organization setting, organizational level specification, team level setting, and personal level setting; 2) to initiate the social media strategy decision-making process by external environment evaluation, internal organizational factor evaluation, social media strategy evaluation and strategy selection; and 3) to implement and monitor social media operations with ethics, management, control, development, and updating.