Ethical decisions at eBay

On 21 May 2014, Shellie Nelson reported that eBay had been hacked and a database of user information was stolen (Nelson, 2014). She went on to say that eBay had discovered two weeks before that employee credentials had been stolen, leading to the hack. 

The following day Katrina Lamansky added to Nelson’s story on the same website, but here Lamansky stated that eBay had been hacked 2 months ago (Lamansky, 2014).

On investigation of the eBay website, a trail of messages relating to the cyber-attack began on 21 May, with a number of updates following (Wenig, 2014). A message on the eBay welcome page has a link to a message regarding their security (Wenig, Important Password Update, 2014).

A code of ethics is a formal document that states an organisation’s primary values and the ethical rules it expects managers and non-managerial employees to follow (Robbins, DeCenzo, Coulter, & Woods, 2011). It was not possible to find eBays Code of Ethics on their web-site.

One of the goals of ethical business communication is to tell the truth (Guffey & Loewy, 2013, p. 277). By omitting to tell customers about the hack as soon as it occurred, eBay could be considered to be unethical. They may have used “The Rationalisation Trap” (Guffey & Loewy, 2013, p. 279) to justify their reasons for withholding this information, for example they may have felt that releasing the information immediately would create panic amongst customers. There is also the possibility that their unethical behaviour was as a result the company trying to ascertain the extent of the problem and introduce damage control before spreading panic amongst customers.

While eBay has displayed unethical behaviour, Katrina Lamanskys’ report on 22 May 2014 is not without unethical behaviour of its own (Lamansky, 2014). While Lamansky links her article to the previous article by Nelson (Nelson, 2014), she says that the hack occurred “two months ago”, but does not go on to say that eBay had only been aware of the hack for the past two weeks. Omission is another form of not telling the truth. Lamansky could possibly have an eBay account of her own and therefore lack objectivity when it comes to this personal issue. Guffey (2013, p. 278) states that “ethical business communicators recognise their own biases and strive to keep them from distorting the message”. She does, however, state that eBay “did not immediately respond to a request for comment”, showing an attempt to reveal the issues from the other point of view.

Guffey (2014, p. 275) states that “ethics is about having values and taking responsibility”. There is often a very fine line between right and wrong, with any number of justifications from the party required to behave ethically. Both eBay and the journalist above need to take responsibility for their unethical behaviour and consider their values.

 

References

Guffey, M. E., & Loewy, D. (2013). Effective and ethical communication at work. In A. Chan, ITC105 Communication and Information Management (pp. 253 - 320). South Melbourne, Victoria: Cengage Learning Australia Pty Limited.

Lamansky, K. (2014, May 22). Customers say eBay's lack of communication regarding hack is 'disappointing'. Retrieved from WQAD: http://wqad.com/2014/05/22/customers-disappointed-about-ebays-lack-of-communication-regarding-hack/

Nelson, S. (2014, May 21). eBay warns customers to change passwords after database hacked. Retrieved from WQAD: http://wqad.com/2014/05/21/ebay-warns-customers-to-change-passwords-after-database-hacked/

Wenig, D. (2014, May 21). eBayinc information. Retrieved from eBayinc.com.

Wenig, D. (2014, May 25). Important Password Update. Retrieved from eBay: https://info.ebayinc.com/

My Non-Verbal Communication Experience

My father’s parents were from Lebanon, but he was first generation South African. Although I had grown up knowing my Lebanese family and their ways, they were Christian Lebanese. I came from a small South African time under Apartheid and was so naïve in my knowledge of the world that I did not know that there were also Muslim Lebanese – in fact I had never previously met anyone of the Muslim faith.

I travelled to Lebanon at the age of 19, shortly after Lebanon’s borders were opened but the country was under Syrian occupation. This was a part of a backpacking trip around the world, including the USA, and I had stitched patches from all of my travels onto my backpack. Of course the biggest patch was an American flag. My knowledge of Lebanese history was non-existence and my only reference to culture was from my family experience – and this was one generation removed.

Landing in Beirut at around 5pm, I needed to get to Jounieh which is along the coast about 40km out of Beirut. I hauled my backpack onto my back and noticed some unpleasant glances in my direction, but I had no idea what the problem was. Fortunately I was pulled aside by a fellow traveller of American-Lebanese origin. He explained that the USA was not very popular in Lebanon and that I needed to cover the US flag. This I did. I then headed out of the airport in search of a taxi to take me to Jounieh. It was now getting dark, and I was a young girl on my own in a foreign country, not able to speak the language.

I finally found someone who spoke English and claimed to be in charge of the taxis. I was delighted, and trying to be polite, I introduced myself and stuck out my hand to shake his. This man, Abu Walihd, was absolutely horrified. He jumped back from my hand, shaking his head and muttering, and I had absolutely no idea what I had done wrong. I later discovered that he was a staunch Muslim and I had insulted him by wanting to touch him – women in his culture are not so forward. In addition he found it wrong that I was travelling unaccompanied. I was also inappropriately dressed with no head covering and a sleeveless t-shirt.  I was extremely fortunate that Abu Walihd was a good man who made sure I was in the right taxi and I arrived at my destination unscathed, although it was quite harrowing for a number of reasons.

Guffey (Lehman, et al., 2013, p. 309) advocates broadening ones view of other cultures. This would have been very beneficial in my situation. If I had prior knowledge of Muslim culture I would have been better equipped and not appeared so insulting to Abu Walihd. I possibly would have had more success in initially finding someone to communicate with me, as my persona showed me to be a disrespectful foreigner. I knew immediately from Abu Walihd’s non-verbal cues that I had offended him, although I was not aware of how.

REFERENCES

Lehman, C. M., DuFrene, D. D., Cameron-Dow, J., Barrett, M., Murphy, W., Ellen, M., & Guffey, D. L. (2013). ITC105 - Communication and Information Management. South Melbourne, Victoria: Cengage Learning Australia.

 

   

Who wrote the better essay and why?

Jane Citizen's essay entitled "Beyond the Gloss: The Challenge of Flight Attendant Rosters" (Citizen, 2014) is the better essay when compared with John Doe's "The Challenges of the Airline Industry" (Doe, 2014). My reasons for this opinion are as follows:

Jane Citizen’s essay has a logical structure using a deductive approach (Lehman, et al., 2013, p. 84).  In using the deductive approach, Citizen lays out the main idea initially, and then backs it up with relevant information. There is a distinct introduction in which she informs the reader of the topic of the piece; and a body in which she makes points to back up her topic. John Doe’s essay has no structure and rambles on without any focus on a particular topic.

Correct referencing is used in Jane Citizen’s essay. In-text references are clear and concise, and these are followed up with a comprehensive reference list. John Doe’s essay has a few in-text citations, but these are not correctly formatted. One of his references is to Wikipedia which is not considered to be a reliable source. His reference list is a bibliography format, and this is not done to any format or in alphabetical order.

Jane Citizen’s essay is well written and does not contain any personal pronouns. Her claims are based on verifiable facts, and not her personal opinion. John Doe’s essay on the other hand is more of an opinion piece with many personal pronouns, and facts which are unable to be verified as one of his sources is his cousin “who must remain anonymous” (Doe, 2014).

From a visual enhancement point of view, Jane Citizen’s essay has clearly demarcated paragraphs. The publishing term for this is “chunking” and comprises the breaking down of information into smaller pieces (Lehman, et al., 2013, p. 153). John Doe’s essay is in one large piece making it tiresome to read.

Lehman et al., (2013, p. 146) states that “Well-developed sentences help readers understand the message clearly and react favourably to the writer or speaker.” While Jane Citizen makes good use of language, grammar and punctuation, John Doe is inclined to  use incorrect sentence structure (for example: “Airlines are under pressure these days to make money.”), mixes tenses (for example: “…were often delayed or even flights are sometimes cancelled”), spelling errors (for example: “one that suffers” should read ‘ones that suffer’, and the use of clichés (for example: “whether you liked it or not”) (Doe, 2014).

In conclusion, John Doe’s essay lacks a logical structure, correct referencing, good grammar, and verifiable facts. In addition he does not break his writing up into easy to read paragraphs, makes inappropriate use of personal pronouns, uses incorrect structure, has spelling errors and uses clichés. For these reasons, Jane Citizen’s essay is better.

References

Citizen, J. (2014). Beyond the Gloss: The Challenge of Flight Attendant Rosters. Topic 4. Charles Sturt University ITC105.

Doe, J. (2014). The Challenges of the Airline Industry. Topic 4. Charles Sturt University ITC105.

Lehman, C. M., DuFrene, D. D., Cameron-Dow, J., Barrett, M., Murphy, W., Ellen, M., & Guffey, D. L. (2013). ITC105 Communication and Information Management. South Melbourne: Cengage.

Greetings from Brisbane

It's a beautiful morning in Brisbane. My day started at 5.15am and a balmy 20 degrees - heading for a Bikram hot yoga session in a sweaty 38 degree room. What a great way to start the day!
And now, after a much needed shower and breakfast, I face the day at my computer, ready to take on my Uni tasks and watch the world go by my window in glorious sunshine!

Later today I'll be heading up the Sunshine Coast to Mooloolaba in preparation for the swim leg of the Mooloolaba triathlon on Sunday, although I've been calling my swim the "drowning leg", and I hope I'm only joking. Weather predictions are 34 degrees, and a huge ocean swell so contingency plans are in place to move the swim into the local canals. I'm hoping the sharks will prefer the swell and stay out of the canals.

This time of year is my favourite in Brisbane - the days are warm, but the humidity is lowering and the nights are somewhat cooler, but still no need for a doona. We have some rain, but it mainly consists of a few showers or thunderstorms which serve to clear the air and freshen things up a little. It's still easy to get up early to exercise with sunrise at about 5.45am. My swimming training which starts at 5.30am is starting to feel a little too early as the first few laps are swum in the dark - not sure how I'll cope swimming through winter as this is my first swim season.

Winters are awful! Relative to winter anywhere else in the world, Brisbane winters are mild. From my personal point of view, however,  I would happily live without winter! The days here are perfect with average temperatures around 24 degrees and beautiful sunshine. Because of the cloudless sky, night time temperatures can drop to around 6 degrees. Queensland houses are designed and constructed for heat and humidity, with the result that there is not much between us and the outdoors on cold days - a one inch floor board is often all there is! Getting up then to go for a run is very hard, but watching the sunrise over the horse paddocks and surrounding hills is just glorious and well worth the early morning pain.

Have a beautiful weekend!