Impact Of Social Media Has Changed Power Balance

Need to realise that social media has changed the power balance between the board/senior management and other stakeholders, like shareholders and investors like institutional investors, super funds, etc. They are adopting a much more critical approach to decisions made by boards/senior managers.

· Previously boards/senior management could make decisions as significant as splitting up a company, accepting or rejecting a takeover bid/merger, granting senior management pay rises, etc with minimal fuss with minimal interference from outside stakeholders

· Some examples of the change in the power balance include

- lawsuits against major Australian banks over credit card late fees

- Australian companies like Treasury Wines, Newcrest Mining, WorleyParsons, etc have been subject of to legal claims over the way they disclose write-downs or profit downgrades

- Westfield had to battle to achieve agreement with influential shareholders such as superannuation funds about its recent splitting of the company into two

· On the other hand, it can have disastrous and often unfair impact on an individual/company. The online backlash can be blown out of all proportions, misconstrued, vicious and unfair. Some Australian examples include the online negative reaction to

- Gerry Harvey's comments on the need for online purchases to be subject to GST like retail stores

- Bernie Brookes's misconstrued comments about the National Disability Scheme's potentially negative impact on disposable income available for retail sector. (source: Michael Smith, 2014b)

• Having too many objective and key result indicators to measure, It is better to have a few key ones like 1 objective with 3 measurable key results every quarter