Evaluate global corporate social responsibility and ethics through evaluation and synthesis of academic and other forms of literature

UNIVERSITY OF SUNDERLAND

DLMM22 Global Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics

Module Code: DLMM22

Module Title: Global Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics

Learning outcomes:

The assignment covers practical implications of module learning outcomes 1, 2, and 4 as the following:

1. Evaluate global corporate social responsibility and ethics through evaluation and synthesis of academic and other forms of literature
2. Evaluate corporate, social and environmental responsibilities from a range of stakeholder perspectives.
3. Analyse the complexity and boundaries of the corporate citizenship debate and evaluate organisational responses to calls for greater accountability and responsibility from both a strategic and operational perspective.

Assessment guideline:

• Weighting – 35% out of 100% of the marks for this module
• This is an individual assignment of 1,500 words. (+ 10%) excluding appendices, reference list, and bibliography.
• The assignment must be submitted ONLINE through TURNITIN© by the due date. Only assessments submitted through TURNITIN© will be marked.

Students should approach this assignment as an academic essay, weighing the arguments for and against each issue, making comments on the literature and drawing logical conclusions. Academic referencing using the Harvard referencing approach is a key requirement of the assignment to demonstrate wider reading and to underpin the discussions, ensuring they have relevant depth. Students are encouraged to be inquisitive and innovative in their approach as to what should be included in this report.

The University policy on cheating collusion and plagiarism will be applied to this piece of work.

Assessment Brief:

Each student selects his/her own company to study from the list of companies provided (Appendix one: The company list).

The requirement is that you analyse in depth one company primary characteristics of their CSR report. The scope of this analysis is to draw from the material discussed within the module.

Analysis contents:

Introduction: a short section setting out Basic Factual Information about the company, such as nature of the business, size, segmental breakdown, brief history, stock market listings etc. (approx. 250 words- 10 Marks)

The main body contains:

Examines the specific features of thorough CSR reporting including:

• Introductory letters
• Mission and Value statement
• Key facts and figures concerning most important CSR efforts and their progress
• Graphs and tables
• Letters of assurance or CSR auditors’ statement
• Interviews and surveys from stakeholders

(approx. 500 words- 40 Marks)

Identifies for each major stakeholder group the most important CSR issues on which a company report and which data points are most valuable. The stakeholders examine include:

• Investors
• Environment
• Employees
• Customer
• Supplies
• Communities
• Government

(approx. 500 words- 40 Marks)

Conclusion: critically evaluate your finding above in the form of a conclusion. (approx. 250 words- 10 Marks)

KEY POINTS

The assignment aims to understand the key areas of Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting using extracts, examples and approaches to CSR issues. This will include investigating topics from throughout the course linked to the ethics and accountability issues. Some of the principles, concepts and models will be more relevant to a company chosen approach than others and so it is likely that different students will formulate different approaches to the problems.

Student assignment should aim to provide readers with comprehensive knowledge and critical reviews of these areas covering, for example:

• Knowledge of a variety of topics related to CSR, ethics and accountability.
• Knowledge of comparing a range of definitions of CSR within the practitioner community and several theoretical frameworks that are applied to the CSR discipline.
• Understandings of, comments on, arguments and contributions to the topic, such as key qualitative characteristics, true and fair view/fair presentation of CSR.

Therefore, the assessment encourages students to explore how accountability may be enhanced and how a more ethical business environment may be nurtured by exercising transparency by a company via CSR reporting. This engages the student in the academic literature and practitioners to view that they then need to apply in their assessment.

THE FRONT COVER OF YOUR ASSIGNMENT MUST SHOW:

1. Your name;
2. Your student registration number;
3. Your Programme of Study (e.g., MBA)
4. The word count (excluding the reference list, bibliography and any appendices).
5. The name of your DLMM22 module leader and tutor.

FORMAT GUIDE:

• All text should be in a clear font such as Arial or Times New Roman;
• All text should be 12-point except for headings.
• The text should be in a single column and left-aligned;
• One and a half spacing between lines, including appendices and bibliography, but excluding quotations, footnotes or captions, which may be single-spaced.
• References: Harvard

Word Limit:

The word count must be stated on the front page of your assignment.

Summarising and compressing the information in your assignment into the word limit is one of the skills that students are expected to acquire and demonstrate as part of the assignment process. The word limit is set as the maximum of 1,500 words. If this is exceeded, then the following penalties are applied:

	Penalty
Exceeds limit by up to 10%	No penalty – tolerance band
Exceeds limit by 10.1 – 20%	5 percentage points
Exceeds limit by 20.1 – 30%	10 percentage points
Exceeds limit by 30.1 – 40%	15 percentage points
Exceeds limit by 40.1 – 50%	20 percentage points
Exceeds limit by more than 50%	Mark of zero

The word count does not include:

• Title page
• Reference list/Bibliography
• Appendices
• Appropriate tables, figures and illustrations

Please note, in-text citations [e.g. (Smith, 2011)] and direct secondary quotations [e.g. “dib-dab nonsense analysis” (Smith, 2011 p.123)] are included in the word count.

The Use of Tables:

Tables should not include large amounts of text which represent the main discussion and arguments, as these should be included in the main body of your work.

If tables are used inappropriately in this way the wording in question will be deemed to be part of the main body of the work and included in the word count (with the relevant penalty imposed where the maximum word count has been exceeded)

Appendix one: The company list:

The company list:
1. Rolex	11. Michelin	21. John Lewis Partnership
2. google	12. Netflix	22. Ernst & Young (UK)
3. Lego	13. Bosch	23. BT
4. Nissan	14. Ikea	24. Starbucks
5. Disney	15. Johnson & Johnson	25. Airbnb
6. Carlsberg	16. Coca-Cola	26. Ben and Jerry’s
7. Adidas Group	17. Ford Motor Company	27. BP oil
8. Microsoft	18. Pfizer	28. Sony
9. Sony	19. Marks and Spenser (M&S)	29. Intel