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MGT 3110 Business and Society 2011/12Group Coursework

Professional report about an issue pertainingto business ethics or CSR

OPTION 1

You work in the CSR department of EKIN, a large multinational company that sellsbranded sports apparel. Over the last two decades, EKIN has been facing a numberof accusations from NGOs regarding working conditions and environmentalperformance in the companys vast supply chain. After initially insisting that they werenot responsible for their suppliers practices, EKIN has over the last ten years begunto take responsibility for their supply chain, by drawing up a code of business conductfor suppliers and by auditing supply chain factories.

About four years ago, EKIN acquired ACTIVE, another company, which is also a wellknown sports brand. The factories that make ACTIVE products have been the

subject of a recent media investigation. These factories, all of which are based inSouth East Asian countries, belong to subcontractors of the companys maincontractor for ACTIVE products and they employ about 10,000 people. Journalistscarrying out interviews with people working in these factories found a large number ofincidents of workers being physically and mentally abused. One female workerreported that she was kicked by a supervisor after making a mistake while cuttingrubber for shoe soles. Other workers reported that they were being hit or scratched inthe arm one man until he bled. The journalists also learned of an incident where asupervisor ordered six female workers to stand in the blazing sun after they failed tomeet their production targets. And a woman reported that managers often callemployees dog, pig or monkey, all of which are insults in her cultural context. NGOsworking in this area have corroborated the workers stories, confirming that the

examples given in the report are typical of the abuses that are happening in thesecompanies.

Worried about the effects of this report on EKINs responsibility image, you areasked by the head of the CSR department to write a report that sets outrecommendations as to what can be done to address the issues raised in themedia report.

OPTION 2

You work in the CSR department of Moonquids, a large international coffeehousechain. Your departments brief mainly consists of ensuring that the companys

stakeholders ethical expectations regarding your supply chain, the treatment of yourstaff and your environmental performance are being met. More recently, however,Moonquids has been facing a rather unusual challenge. To attract customers, one ofthe companys strategies has been to create a home-like ambience in its outlets, byputting in comfortable leather chairs, playing smooth jazz music in the background,and providing Wi-Fi, so that people can use the space to work on their laptops orcheck their Facebook account and email while enjoying their latte. A recentnewspaper report has highlighted that this home like atmosphere may leadcustomers to let their guard down and thus provide an easy target for petty criminals.

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This has been confirmed by police statistics which show a rather high and steadynumber of handbag, purse and laptop thefts in your chain outlets, particularly inlarger cities.

The CEO believes that this is an issue that falls within the remit of the CSRdepartment and should be seriously looked at, not least because of reputationalconcerns. The Head of the CSR department, in turn, passes this task on to you and

asks you to write a report setting out what can be done to address this issue.

OPTION 3

You are a team of ethics advisers to a medium-sized investment bank that operatesin the City of London. You have been called in by one of the board directors who isworried about a report on drug abuse in the City of London. The report draws on thethe experience of a specialist addiction counselling service and claims that a largenumber of City workers increasingly turn to drugs to cope with the pressure andstress that they experience in their jobs. Clients of the counselling service havereported that people put a 60 bottle of wine on their expense account whenfrequenting bars after work, but these expensive vintage wines are in fact code forwraps of cocaine that these bars are selling. They also say that City workersfrequently buy drugs from colleagues to feed their habit. The report further arguesthat addiction to certain drugs, such as cocaine, will also lead people to develop anaddiction to alcohol. Clients of the counselling service admit that they have frequentlytraded under the influence of the previous nights alcohol and drug binge. And theyalso report that at City Christmas parties the cocktail of binge drinking (fuelled by freebooze) and drug taking may lead male workers to sexually assault their femalecolleagues.

The board director feels that the issues raised by the report should be taken seriouslyby the bank. She asks you to write a report setting out what the company can doto address the issue of substance abuse in the City.

OPTION 4

You are an ethics and compliance consultancy firm, which has been hired by the newCEO of GreatDrinks, an international alcoholic beverage company, which has stock-market listings in London and New York. The previous year, GreatDrinks received afine of 16 million US Dollars from US authorities for paying more than 3 million dollarsin bribes in the companys growth markets in Asia. The investigators found that thecompanys subsidiaries routinely used third parties, inflated invoices and otherdeceptive practices such as re-labelling transactions as marketing promotion todisguise the true nature of the bribe payments. In one country, managers paidgovernment officials cash service fees to increase government sales orders of

GreatDrinks products and to secure favourable product placement in government-owned liquor stores. In another country, a government official was paid to lobby andbribe other officials to adopt the companys position in a number of tax and customsdisputes. The company also took numerous other officials on European trips tosecure favourable treatment.

GreatDrinks asks you to write a report, setting out what the company can do toclean up their tarnished image.

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Instructions:

Choose ONE of the four options above.

Your report to the company should cover the following:

A brief outline of the ethical issue. Use ONE ethical theory to justifywhy this issue deserves attention.

An outline of one or several courses of action that the company canundertake to address this issue.

A reflection about the LIMITATIONS of the courses of action you havesuggested.

Evidence that all group members contributed to the process tosufficient degree to justify an equal award of marks.

Your word limit must not exceed 1,300 words. Do not forget toinclude your word count in your essay.

The essay will be marked using the following criteria:

Outlining of the ethical issue(s) described in the case

Correct application of one ethical theory to the issue described inthe case

Quality of the recommendations made to the company

Quality of reflection about the limitations

Style and Presentation (including accurate referencing andauthenticity)

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Process:

1. Choose your group members. You are expected to work in groups

of 3-5. (Some marks will be deducted if you dont work in a groupof that size.)

2. Email the module leader (Dr Andrea Werner,a.werner@mdx.ac.uk) your group members by Friday, 27 January2012.

3. A final appendix to the report (1 page) will detail how the groupworked as a collaborative team (meeting log).

Every member of a group will receive the SAME mark for the reportunless any member fails to contribute a fair share, in which case,tutor will have the discretion to decide the students mark based onthe group feedback and evidence provided using a group meetinglog. The meeting log could include the following: who attended,apologies received, issues discussed, decisions made, andimplementation.

4. Submission deadline is Monday, 26 March, 2012, 4pm. Failureto submit on time will result in a fail grade. You are required to

submit your coursework both electronically through TurnItIn (seeinstructions in module handbook and on MyUniHub module site),and as hard copy to the student office.