In 2004 , twenty year-old Mark Zuckerburg and a group of colleagues at Harvard University launched , from their dorm rooms , what would become the world ’ s most powerful social network worth some 45 billion US dollars and employing over fifteen thousand people . Today , after a slew of lawsuits , app developments and years passed that company is known , worldwide , as Facebook .
Voted ‘ Best Place to Work For ’ by Glassdoor in 2013 , Facebook Inc ’ s flagship social network , Facebook , has allowed for the interconnection of individuals and interests from different cultures , backgrounds and / or locations across the world in a way that was never before tapped into thus positioning the company as frontrunners of the global online social media market . With this role , Facebook has had to adapt an organisational culture that seeks to answer to the demands of a fast-paced industry which has , essentially , allowed for the establishment of a clear and functional vision , the creation of a rigid system of employment and the facilitation of an arena of open communication .
To begin with , connecting the world in real time is the vision that has helped the now California-based Facebook to establish their major values as part of a hacker organisational culture . Generally , when we describe organisational culture we consider the collective values , beliefs and principles of organizational members as a product of such factors as history , product , market , technology , strategy , type of employees , management style , vision , values , norms , systems , symbols , language , assumptions , beliefs , and habits of the organization ( Needle , 2004 ). Helreigel and Slocum ( 2010 ) further suggest that there are four types of organisational culture , namely : beauracratic culture , clan culture , market culture and entrepreneurial culture . Facebook can best be described as having an entrepreneurial culture which means that the workplace is creative , risk-taking , flexible and innovative .
The company ’ s mission statement which is “ to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected ,” suggest that the company ’ s main objectives are empowering people , enabling sharing and connecting the world . Smithson ( 2017 ) found that by empowerment , Facebook ’ s goal is to make its online social networking service practical for users to become more capable online . By enablement , Facebook aims to allow users to share pieces of information in the form of texts , images , videos and other file types . By connection , users have the ability to become “ friends ” on the social media website . With this vision , Facebook has established , shared and operated under the headline of certain key values that serve as its major strategy for driving productivity and translate to , ‘ Move Fast and Break Things .’
Additionally , the company ’ s attitude to innovation is described by Blodget ( 2010 ) as “ aggressive , but smart .” Blodget further suggests , “ Facebook ' s approach to innovation is not always popular , but it works . And if Facebook wants to maintain its competitive edge , it will do what it has to do to smooth over the latest blow-up , and then go forth with the same approach and attitude it has had all along .” Jarzmensky ( 2012 ) found that Facebook ’ s profits had jumped 65 % to $ 1 billion in the previous year when its revenue , which is mainly from advertising , had jumped almost 90 % to $ 3.71 billion . According to reports , 56 % of the company ’ s advertising revenue comes from the US alone meanwhile payments and other fees were $ 557 million up from $ 106 million the previous year . Since its onslaught , Facebook has adapted changes and offset major programmes and projects such as the acquisition of Instagram in 2009 for 1 billion dollars , the acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014 for 19 billion dollars , the like button , newsfeed , Facebook notes , tagging and attachments , timeline , Facebook on your home screen and etc . These innovations have , inter alia , positioned Facebook as the pioneers of social networking with a reputation that was once impeccable until last year when a hew of accusations surrounding the proliferation of false news stories on its sites and the practice of highlighting certain news stories over others had resulted in The Guardian labelling 2016 as “ the year Facebook became the bad guy ”.