Assignment Detailed Guidelines
Using the above table and information you have co
Assignment Detailed Guidelines
Using the above table and information you have collected now develop your assignment.
Key Assumption:
You work for a CSR Consultancy. Assume and make clear in the report the type of business you will be advising as a CSR Expert. Example: industry (automotive industry), specialisation (Vehicle Manufacturers), focus (clean cars).
Select an ethical or social issue such as discrimination (example: you will need to identify subcategories of discrimination to further focus your topic to only one. For example you could focus on: age discrimination, gender discrimination or religious discrimination). Identify the stakeholder groups affected by this ethical issue in the
•
•
context of business (in the case of discrimination: employees). Provide a theoretical justification why discrimination is an ethical issue to position the topic in the field of business ethics and CSR.
Read academic articles that focus on this ethical issue. Use academic articles to present a definition of the issue in your assignment citing the relevant academic paper. Present also material around the ethical/social issue from empirical articles that are part of the grey literature (government reports, nonprofit reports, newspaper articles etc.). In this way, you will be able to provide a contextualised understanding around the social issue e.g. what happened, why, when it happened, and under what circumstances in theory and practice based on published research.
Look also for case-examples in reports (reports by businesses or other organisations such as think-tanks, non-profit and public-sector organisations) and newspaper articles in order to develop an up-to-date understanding of the issue that you are examining and refer to the two examples of companies.
Use your background reading and your ‘moral imagination’ (Werhane, 2002) to develop suggestions on how to address proactively the ethical issue.
You need to understand the issue in depth and in detail so that you can meet the above requirements of the assignment.
Assignment structure:
Introduction
• Explain the purpose of the report as a CSR expert. Imagine that a company asked you to look into one social or ethical issue as a CSR consultant. You undertook desktop research to understand better the issue in theory and in practice. Your report will be circulated to all relevant managers to help them understand the issue and take appropriate action across all the business departments based on your recommendations
• Explain the focus of the issue that you are examining (in the case of ‘employee discrimination’ this issue can occur at the hiring stage or during the employment period or at the promotions cycle. Hence, it is important to make clear if your report is advising on employee discrimination at a specific stage.
•Explain why the ethical issue that you have chosen is important for the specific industry
• Refer to two key examples (provide references for all material used) to make clear to all what the issue is about, its dimensions and implications
• Provide a conclusion at the end of your introduction Main Body
Define the ethical issue within the theoretical literature (provide appropriate references and a definition of the issue from an academic paper) and provide examples of companies that dealt with the same issue successfully (the same or different examples provided in the introduction) and the solutions they developed (requirement 1) Identify the affected parties (stakeholders) for your client by providing a brief descriiption of why and how each stakeholder group is affected and how while making
reference to consequences and the responsibilities/obligations of each stakeholder
group (requirement 2)
• Think creatively on how a business should act to prevent such an ethical issue from
occurring by developing an appropriate CSR programme (e.g. refer to how a code of ethics should address discrimination). Develop your own ideas or generate ideas based on your reading of academic papers and moral imagination (requirement 3)
Conclusion
• Summarise the above points by providing your recommendations on how the company that you are advising should develop practices to prevent or resolve this issue
Marking criteria for the Assignment:
Complex thinking
Complex linking Sustainable solutions
a/ demonstrate in depth theoretical and empirical understanding of the social/ethical issue;
b/ demonstrate the ability to identify multiple links between stakeholders and the business around a social/ethical issue;
c/ demonstrate the ability to think proactively and propose solutions to anticipated and address issues.
In addition to the above the three generic UoK categorical marking criteria will considered:
a) Reading & Knowledge, b/ Understanding, analysis and argument and c/ Organisation and presentation as per usual.
At the end of your assignment include the completed Student Self Checklist for Assignment 1 (see separate file on moodle).