87355 - SOCIAL MEDIA ED ETICA PER LE DECISIONI DI IMPRESA

Learning outcomes

This course is divided in two modules.

The first module focuses on social media marketing.

Social media is continuously transforming the way consumers interact with each other and firms. The course covers the implications of the evolution on marketing strategy in the complex digital environment. These communication channels  are presenting significant challenges to marketers in selecting the best strategies to maximize returns and satisfy the customer base. The primary purpose of the course is to analyze and select these plans using tools that can help managers to take decisions. This module adopts a quantitative approach. Therefore, statistical techniques are used to detect to and examine the link between social media strategies, consumer behavior, and firms’ performance. The purpose of this module is to improve the analytical and creative skills that are necessary to define and develop effective social media marketing strategies. By the end of the module, students will have acquired both analysis and analytical skills that could be applied to support critical management decisions.

The second module focuses on ethics for corporate decisions.

The second module aims at introducing ethics in management with a pragmatic approach. The module does not take a normative perspective, that is it does not consist of a catalog of things to do or not to do. Rather, it is proposed to accustom future decision-makers to ask the right questions and seek the most appropriate responses. In particular, at the end of the course participants will be able to address business decisions starting from assumptions, languages and metaphors which can better represent the nature of the business and its contribution to the socio-cultural and enviromental context in which it operates.

Course contents

MODULE 1: SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

• Introduction to social media marketing

• Social Media Marketing Metrics

• Performance of Social Media marketing strategies: Predictive Models

• Performance of Social Media marketing strategies:Field Test

• Online Reviews

  The program is the same for attending and non-attending students in terms of macro topics, but study materials (e.g. textbooks and papers) differ. For non-attending students there are supplementary readings on the same macro arguments.

MODULE 2: ETHICS FOR CORPORATE DECISIONS

• the apparent contradiction of the expression "business ethics";

• gift economy, management and happiness;

• ethics and responsibility in business;

• EU Green Paper, AMA statement of ethics, corporate philanthropy and impact investing;

• teleological ethics and motivational ethics;

• the integration of the personalistic principle and the common good for business ethic;

• the Friedman's perspective and the shared value;

• ethics in finance and ethics in marketing;

• Stakeholder theory and the Italian contribution to business ethics.

Readings/Bibliography

MODULE 1: SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

TEXT

• Aaker, Kumar, Day Leone “Marketing Research” edizione 10th, chapter 13

  PAPERS

  Introduction to social media marketing (suggested)

• "Social Media Intelligence" Moe and Schweidel Chapter 1

• Winer "New Communications Approaches in Marketing: Issues and Research Directions" 2012 Journal of Interactive Marketing

• Patterson "Social-networkers of the world, unite and take over: A meta-introspective perspective on the Facebook brand" 2012 Journal of Interactive Marketing

  Metrics in social media marketing (required)

• Peters et al. “Social Media Metrics — A Framework and Guidelines for Managing Social Media” 2013 Journal of Interactive Marketing

  Assessing the social media marketing effectiveness (required)

• Berger e Milkman "What Makes Online Content Viral?" 2012 Journal of Marketing Research

• de Vries, Gensler, Leeflang "Popularity of Brand Posts on Brand Fan Pages: An Investigation of the Effects of Social Media Marketing" 2012 Journal of Interactive Marketing

• Berger and Schwartz “What Drives Immediate and Ongoing Word of Mouth? 2011 Journal of Marketing Research

• Manchanda, Puneet, Grant M. Packard, and Adithya Pattabhiramaiah. "Social Dollars: The Economic Impact of Customer Participation in a Firm-sponsored Online Customer Community." Marketing Science (2016).

  Online Reviews

• Mayzlin, Dina, Yaniv Dover, and Judith Chevalier. "Promotional reviews: An empirical investigation of online review manipulation." The American Economic Review 104.8 (2014): 2421-2455.

• Readings/Bibliography - NON-Attending Students

• Students who can not participate to team work activity during classes are considered as "non-attending students" even if they actually participate to sit-down lectures. Non-attending students should consider all the articles and book chapters indicated in the program for attended students above. In addition, the following three supplementary readings must be added:

  TEXT

• Blattberg R.C., Kim B., e Neslin S.A. "Database Marketing" Analyzing and Managing Customers: chapters 10, 11

  PAPERS

• Wendy W. Moe and David A. Schweidel, “Online Product Opinions: Incidence, Evaluation, and Evolution,” Marketing Science, 31 (2012), 372–86

  Case

• Harvard Business Review Case. “Sephora Direct: Investing in Social Media, Video, and Mobile” .

MODULE 2: ETHICS FOR CORPORATE DECISIONS

The textbook is: Visentin, M. (2016) "Decidere meglio, decidere per tutti. L'etica nell'impresa", Aracne Editrice, Roma.

For each lesson a reading is assigned:

• Measuring the Return on Character, Harvard Business Review, April 2015.

• Marco Aime al volume di Marcel Mauss (2002) Saggio sul dono. Torino: Giulio Einaudi Editore

• Garriga, E. e Melé, D. (2004) Corporate Social Responsibility Theories: Mapping the Territory, Journal of Business Ethics, 53, 51-71.

• Porter, M.E. e Kramer, M. (2002) The Competitive Advantage of Corporate Philantropy, Harvard Business Review, December 2002.

• Visentin, M. (2014) Happiness and the market: the ontology of the human being in Thomas Aquinas and modern functionalism, Business Ethics: a European Review, 23(4), 430-444.

• Melé, D. (2009) Integrating Personalism into Virtue-Based Business Ethics: The Personalist and the Common Good Principles, Journal of Business Ethics, 88, 227-244.

• Porter, M.E. e Kramer, M.R. (2006) Strategy and Society. The link between competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility, Harvard Business Review, December; Porter, M.E. e Kramer, M.R. (2011) Creating Shared Value, Harvard Business Review, January-February.

• Maignan, I., e Ferrell, O. C. (2004) Corporate social responsibility and marketing: an integrative framework. Journal of the Academy of Marketing science, 32(1), 3-19.

• Costa, E., e Ramus, T. (2012) The Italian Economia Aziendale and catholic social teaching: How to apply the common good principle at the managerial level. Journal of business ethics, 106(1), 103-116.

 

Teaching methods

MODULE 1: SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

The module utilizes four main tools: some part taken from textbooks, selected articles and cases, lab session with assignments and, most importantly, two "hands-on" a team work project done in collaboration with a media company. You will also use STATA and Excel to analyze data and cases. A description of the team work activity is provided at the end of this syllabus.

1. Readings and Cases:

I have assigned readings from the texts and some other sources for each class meeting. They provide necessary background for class discussion. Descriptions of some advanced analytical methods may be difficult to grasp fully at the first reading. Please skim those sections before class to acquaint yourself with the topic and then go back and work through the details after we discuss them in class.

We will also discuss a case that illustrates some of the issues associated to budget decisions across medias. I expect you to come to class fully prepared with a comprehensive analysis of the case and your recommendations. Discussion questions for the case are included in the course packet.

2. Lab Sessions:

Two lab sessions are scheduled within the course. During these sessions we will work with actual data and cases provided by companies or retrieved from the web. These sessions are related to specific topics outlined in the detailed syllabus table, and will involve application of predictive modeling tecniques and field experiment and A/B test tecniques. The purpose of these sessions is to ensure that you will be able to design, analyze and interpret data to support social media marketing decisions.

3. Team Work Activity:

Each year the specific research problem changes, however it is always related to the assessment of the performance of social media marketing strategies. The goal is to understand what may determine the success or failure of a social media marketing strategy. To reach this goal the analytical techniques discussed in classed will be used in team work activity.

Each team will be assigned (through a random draw) a project. Each team is free to choose one of the techniques and focus on that.

This is a major project designed to enhance your analysis skills. It requires you to conduct a detailed analysis using statistical techniques, synthesize the findings from that analysis and couple them with creative thought to make a social media marketing decision. You will work in teams on this project. It will culminate in a presentation to the class due in the last week of the course. Working in teams of five students. This will require the use of STATA and either EXCEL.

MODULE 2: ETHICS FOR CORPORATE DECISIONS

Traditional lecture.

At the beginning of each lessons a real case will be offered for a critical analysis.

Assessment methods

MODULE 1: SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

The first module includes a written exam. Students have several available dates for the written exam that usually are scheduled at the end of the course, that is the end of the III term (March-April), at the end of the IV term (June-July), or in September.

The course also offers the possibility to attending students to develop a team work activity. Students that decide to participate to team work activity will be evaluated taking into consideration both: team work report and presentation (group evaluation) and the final written exam (individual evaluation).

• Written Exam

  It can have open questions about theory, definitions, and cases and exercises based on the lab sessions.

  No multiple choice questions are provided and no oral exam is offered.

  Team Work Activity

  This activity is described in the teaching methods section above. This is a work done together with other students. Groups will be formed during the first lesson of the course.

  Teams Formation

• If you have problems in finding students to complete the group you should email the tutor of the course. In this email you should indicate how many students you need to complete the group.

• Similarly, if some of you have problems in finding a group you should email the tutor of the course; who will find a group for you.

  Nature of the team:

• Heterogeneity in the group formation is appreciated, this means that groups made of students of the same nationality, gender, Erasmus, are not welcomed. You should try to do your best to form a heterogeneous group.

  Rules:

  Each team must complete a sort of consulting activity that requires the use of real data and of statistical analyses. Each team should produce a report and present their results to the class.

  Teams will be evaluated and will receive a mark for the team work activity.

  Validity of the team work activity mark:

  The team work mark is valid for all 2018 exam sessions, but not for 2019 exam sessions.

  If you did not pass the exam by September 2018 or decide to skip it your mark for the team work activity is lost and you should consider the program for non-attending students.

  Self-Assessment:

  Please be aware that whole team is given the same mark so the mark is equally shared among the team members. This should reinforce your group responsibilities as the group succeeds or fails together.

  At the end of the course each member of the group should evaluate each team member on a rating scale (1=did not contribute, 2 =willing but not successful, 3= Average, 4 =Above Average, 5 =Outstanding). Please take into consideration also attendance to the other group presentations and outside examiner role to form your evaluation of each member.

  These evaluations will be not formally included in the final individual mark, but will be used if necessary to adjust the mark for the group activity of a student if his or her average evaluation is < or = 2). If the evaluation of the student =1 the student should consider the non-attending student program.

MODULE 2: ETHICS FOR CORPORATE DECISIONS

Written test. A real ethical case in business is assigned. The case shold be analyzed basing on three theories among those analyzed during the course.

Teaching tools

Additional material (e.g. assignments, exercises, datasets, slide) is used and required for the exam. This means that it must be studied. This material will be distributed as needed and will be available online

Office hours

See the website of Sara Valentini

See the website of Marco Visentin