CSR & student ethics

Student attitudes to socially responsible business: The Royal Mint and its ethical

sourcing policy

Dr Debbie Holley* with student co-authors Saranda Hajdari, Dianne Hummal, Tomasz

ScibiorLondon Metropolitan Business School

An exploration of student attitudes to ethics

Background to study:This study was prompted by

press coverage of the role of business schools during the ‘credit crunch’

Method two stages:(1) Analysis of student

coursework – an ethical section worth 30% of total coursework mark

(2) In-depth interviews with three students

Discussion of issuesWhat next?

Press coverage on role of business schools

“It now seems a fundamental failure of business school ideology has been to focus on how companies can make the most money with minimal regard to social consequence” Nair 2009

“For too long, business schools have taken an either/or approach to teaching business ethics, opting for either a stand-alone course or an integrated model. Krehmeyer 2009

Pre-credit crunch, the need for MBAs to be "ethical" as well as show you how to fast-track your career and make a load of cash was not that high on the agenda, concedes Stoddard 2010

Copper mine Minera Escondida

http://www.mch.cl/noticias/imagenes/escondida1.jpg

BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto owned

http://www.mch.cl/noticias/imagenes/escondida1.jpg

Student Assessment brief

Your task is to provide a “Financial Times” style piece of interesting and original work of not more than 1500 words that assesses the supply chain issues facing the Royal Mint. The completed work should include full referencing of all sources, facts, and figures within the body of the work and a full bibliography is to be provided.

Indicative marking scheme:•Include a brief analysis of the Royal Mint and some carefully selected information about the country of origin (20%)Demonstrate your knowledge the physical supply chain process for transporting and processing copper (including minting the money) from the country of origin to final destination (50%)Assess the implications of the recent press coverage about ethical issues (30%)Marks will be allocated for depth of research and writing that conveys a range of complex issues within the word count.

Saranda Hajdari

• I am originally from Kosovo - lived in the UK since 1999. I am currently studying for an undergraduate BA joint honours degree in International Business and Management at London Metropolitan University; I have really enjoyed the degree so far, and feel that the course has allowed me to develop my critical thinking and written skills.

• I am hoping to be accepted for MSc Political Science and Political Economy at the London School of Economics so that I can challenge myself academically and gain a successful career. My background has given me a thirst for embracing politics in a positive manner - one which can change lives, not destroy them. Ultimately, I hope to pursue a political career, and believe that a solid academic foundation will give me the knowledge and skills necessary for this to be achieved.

• I believe that students should be learning about ethics from secondary school. Although it is important that ethics should be taught more in undergraduate courses, if students do not have an ethical and moral compass, I very much doubt that a few modules at business school are going to make much of a difference. The rushing river of profit and greed creates a cultural flow so strong that ethics can be more challenging to navigate. Most importantly, I think that business school should not be merely responsible because I believe that students should have acquired ethical foundations before university from their parents, family, and peers. Although I would encourage greater emphasis on the study of ethics during university, I am almost certain that a few modules would not be able to instil ethical qualities.

• (Note – Saranda was accepted UCL on the MA politics security and integration. )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO3wRMaayMo




Dianne Hummal• I am from Estonia and I moved to London nearly 3 years ago to gain further

knowledge about different countries and cultures (Prior to moving to London, I spent a year in Washington D.C.). I am currently an undergraduate student at London Metropolitan University and undertaking the final year of my BA Marketing with Arts Management course.

• My interest towards international business has grown since my early age as my mother works in an Estonian organisation that trades cloth and materials from abroad for manufacturing clothes for designers around Scandinavia, the Baltic countries and the UK. While I have always been convinced that organisations should be responsible for giving something back to the societies that they operate in, but I have never really put much thought into how to actually carry out ethical business decisions, and how severe the consequences of unethical behaviour can be

• What I found the most compelling about this course is that tackling issues, such ethics and CSR, were done in a very natural way, as the students were asked to prepare a real business case study – making the learning processes intriguing and relevant in the real-world business context.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jI0aAgEWN8




Update on Dianne

Having gained some experience at various marketing agencies, she is now working for a digital recruitment firm that places top talent into leading marketing firms.

Dianne says that:The agency that I work for follows the conduct of employment, in-house and when working for clients, as it stand firmly against any kind of discrimination.

Tomasz Scibior• Originally from Poland, I have been living in the UK since 2003, and

currently studying Business Information Technology Management & Business Operations Management at London Metropolitan University. I found this course dynamic and challenging. Practical knowledge gained from work experience in many European countries is helping me to absorb some theoretical background and to understand many business objectives. At this stage my long term interest is in Business System Analyses and Business Strategies. What I am enjoying the most is diversity of culture and close relations with teachers.

• "Do we really care"? If it is true, what should we do? How to react? Being Business undergraduate student, it is my understanding that ethics perception should be inculcating not only through teaching or discipline.

• Our awareness of ethics should be derived from our upbringing, experience and common sense. Although, I would enjoy an ethics foundation course as a part of degree curriculum, I don’t see Business School as an institution which currently offers a crucial role to play in the area of ethics education.

• (Note) Tomasz works for Kodak as a SAP expert, and is currently travelling in Russia on business

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xFL7WsFIPY




Student attitudes:“"Do we really care"? If it is true, what should we do? How to react? Being Business undergraduate student, it is my understanding that ethics perception should be inculcating not only through teaching or discipline.” (Scibior 2010)

“Although it is important that ethics should be taught more in undergraduate courses, if students do not have an ethical and moral compass, I very much doubt that a few modules at business school are going to make much of a difference. The rushing river of profit and greed creates a cultural flow so strong that ethics can be more challenging to navigate.”(Hadjari 2010)

“Most importantly, however, this course has made me observe the international business environment in a completely different light, and has made me think about whether a ‘win-win situation’ is ever possible in an international business context, where the organisations are involved in extremely complex supply chains.” (Hummal 2010)













Background Information: Cohort analysis

The next slides give a cohort analysis.

There were 43 students in the group, each of which had the ‘ethical’ aspects of their coursework analysed

Students and gradesCohort Analysis

E14%

D24%

C38%

B17%

A7%

E

D

C

B

A

• 38% of students had very limited, or bare ‘pass’ (third class honours standard) answers to the question.

• 38% of students were able to give an ‘average’ answer,(2:2) level

• 24% of students attracting very good marks (2:1 and above)

Did students answer the question set?

Answer Question

E14%

D30%

C29%

B17%

A10%

E

D

C

B

A

High scoring students (grades A and B above) answered the question set.

It is interesting to note that this was only 27% of the cohort.

Very few addressed the question set and discussed both Chile and the Royal Mint and applied ethical considerations.

Poorer scoring answers (44%) these students tended to regurgitate what they read without using any structure to provide a valid

answer.

The focus on Chile compared with Royal Mint

Focus on Royal Mint compared with Chile

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43

Paper Number

Mar

ks FC

FM

On balance, more students focussed on Chile than completed their answer by referring back to the implications of ethics for the Royal Mint.

Papers 16 and 20 both focussed on the Royal Mint more closely than the focus on Chile, yet still scored very highly in terms of offering their own opinion and got high marks.

Student 27 had no section on ethics

Quality of referencing

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43

Paper Number

Ma

rks QR

CA

• Some students could have fewer references but use ones that are actually valid, for example, several students used wikipedia or online encyclopaedias

• And/ or confined their research to a few websites, which were widely available to everyone (we had a shared resource bulletin board running)

• Others muddled their terminology and used ethics/ corporate governance, corporate social responsibility and environmental catastrophe as all sharing similar meanings.

Student 27 excellent references but didn’t answer the question on ethics

Student 21 poor references and poor mark

Coursework findings:• The analysis, although limited, does illustrate some of the complexities of

student writing and ethics. • There is a direct correlation between quality of references and cohort

analysis, in that students who have spent time and effort researching their topic have achieved higher grades.

• However, this is not consistent throughout, and a small number excellent reference lists did not achieve great grades, and in these circumstances it is suspected the students has merely copied and pasted references (possibly from peers) in an effort to hide the weakness of the work.

• Only eight out of the forty three students presented their personal opinions,

despite this being encouraged both in class and in the briefing document.

References:The students wrote a great paper with me – we hope to get it published.

Please contact Debbie for a full version

Student attitudes to socially responsible business: The Royal Mint and its ethical sourcing policy

Dr Debbie Holley* with student co-authors Saranda Hajdari, Dianne Hummal, Tomasz Scibior

[email protected]

Holley, D (forthcoming 2012)Student attitudes to CSR: The Chilean copper workersSocial Research JournalISSN: 1747-111

Students are all graduands from London Metropolitan University Business School

Education

CSR & student ethics