Business Ethics and Responsible Management Semester 1 Assignment, URBS, UK

Assessment Brief

You will be expected to show that you understand the importance of individual and organisational ethical thinking and practice and that you can apply ethical decision making. You will also need to show that you can think critically about the role of business in society. Further, you will need to show that you have understand the way in which theory can underpin how ethical issues are viewed, but also that you understand that theory offers a guide but not necessarily the answer to practice. The assessment also requires you to show that you have reflected on what makes an ethical leader and manager and what that means in the context of organisational culture. 

An extensive rubric is provided which will show you how the work is marked and what is required to achieve high marks.

Your assessment into two parts with part 1 being further split into two.  Part 1 is split into 2 because both parts require you to use the case you chose from the three available; part 2 is NOT related to the case. Read the requirements below and read the case carefully, it also has advice on how to answer. You should attempt all three parts. You will submit all three parts together in the same submission.

You should look at the following cases of businesses that have attracted attention due to some aspect of practice – each will be outlined in a separate case brief on Moodle. You should choose the ONE of these that interests you and complete the following:

Part 1

You are required to write a brief report for senior managers at the case of your choosing. This report is written from the perspective of a junior manager tasked by senior managers to outline the ethical issues of the case. You will need to explore a number of factors including – Why should this be explored as an ethical question? You should identify what you think is the ethical problem – for example the unfair exploitation of a person, group of people or resource; or maybe it is a lack of integrity, dishonesty or somehow the company has disregarded either the values it espouses (you may want to look and see what your company says its values are), or values that you think society might assumed a company should hold. You can see- it could be a variety of things and we are interested in how you assess the case.

Then you will review how the company might want to think about the role of business in society? This is where you will use the Friedman and Freeman ideas – look at the case outline, again we talk a little about this there. You would want to review class 2 as well where we cover the idea of shareholder primacy versus stakeholder management.

You will also need to outline who the key stakeholders are and in what way they are affected. This part is crucial – you should think about who/what is affected at the time the decision was made. We can – we assume – think that the company was not expecting to hit the headlines in the way it clearly has/did. So we are NOT looking for you to start by saying shareholders were hit through bad publicity – what company would make a decision knowing that it would lose value in this way? So – think about the time the company made the decision to sell its product in the way reported, or employ staff on the terms it does. Think about the example of the water companies, presumably when they used the environment to dispose of waste they were not thinking that they would get such negative attention,  what was the company thinking (or not) at the time?

You should include research into examples of how ethical choices impact on other companies (e.g where is there research that shows good choices benefit companies and bad choices have a negative impact?). We are looking for MUCH deeper thought and research than ‘VW lost values when it lied about emissions’ or that ‘Patagonia have a good CSR policy’ (or indeed the recent news that Patagonia is being given to charity!). Rather, we want you to find academic research – how do staff react when they know that they are working for a company with good values? Do consumers actually buy more from companies with good reputations and less from those that, are reckless with how they use raw materials? We will cover more of this in the seminar in week 4

Finally you should conclude with some recommendations for what the company should do – you can do something to rectify the problem, but in some cases at least the company has already started that. Rather, we would like you to think about what this case says about your chosen company. If they can make a decision like this on, for example, advertising, would we think that ‘ethics’ are at the forefront of other decisions they make? How can you recommend they make ALL their decisions better? 

This part of your assessment should be written as a report, but should be referenced in the normal academic way using Harvard citations and referencing.

1. For this part you should again use your chosen case study – but this time choose TWO ethical theories and demonstrate that you can apply these to the case to show how your chosen theories lead you to a view on the ethics of the case. You should choose theories we have explored in class, but if you have chosen to research a different ethical tradition, for example Islamic ethics, you may use that; it would be useful if you confirm with your tutor if you wish to use an idea not fully covered in class.

This part is to be written in a more academic style 

Your choices for cases are:

• Boening: The tension between cost and safety
• Deliveroo: The experience of delivery drivers
• Schein:  Fast fashion and sustainability

Each of these is on Moodle and is linked to an article and background material related to the story.

Part 2

Part 2 is NOT related to the case study. This section requires you to discuss what makes an ethical leader and how you would, as an ethical manager, manage your business and/or others to a high ethical standard. 

You will need to think about personal ethics, about the conditions that bring about unethical organisations and practices, about organisational values and methods of compliance. 

It is highly recommended that to refer to the week on leadership and use the material we use in class from Trevino et al which you will find on your reading list. 

Marking and feedback process

Between you handing in your work and then receiving your feedback and marks within 20 days, there are a number of quality assurance processes that we go through to ensure that students receive marks which reflects their work. A brief summary is provided below.

• Step One – The module and marking team meet to agree standards, expectations and how feedback will be provided.
• Step Two – A subject expert will mark your work using the criteria provided in the assessment brief.
• Step Three – A moderation meeting takes place where all members of the teaching and marking team will review the marking of others to confirm whether they agree with the mark and feedback. 
• Step Four – Work at Levels 5 and 6 then goes to an external examiner who will review a sample of work to confirm that the marking between different staff is consistent and fair.
• Step Five – Your mark and feedback is processed by the Office and made available to you.

Answer

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