Analyse concepts and theories of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and business ethics LO2 Discuss the relevance of ethical and CSR concepts in organisational contexts LO3 Differentiate CSR issues from the perspective of different stakeholders

Animal experiments are widely used to develop new medicines and to test the safety of other products.  Many of these experiments cause pain to the animals involved or reduce their quality of life in other ways.

Using this case and theory taught in the module, identify two contrasting ethical theories.  Critically analyse how these two theories could be used to argue the case both for and against testing of medicines on animals.  You should ensure that you use a range of relevant sources to support your work, including at least two peer-reviewed journal articles.

Question 2 – CSR Theories and Amazon Case Study

Amazon is a successful global online company that sells a huge range of goods.  However it has been criticised for avoiding paying taxes on a worldwide scale.  In Europe it uses a company base in Luxembourg to reduce the amount of tax paid in other European countries and in the US it uses loopholes around having a physical presence in certain states to avoid paying tax there.  In 2013 it was reported that in the UK, Amazon paid £2.4m in tax on a total bill of £3.2m for 2012, but received £2.5m in government grants.  This was on a reported sales figure of £4.2billion and a turnover of £230m.  Amazon’s boss would argue that they are following the legal rules and have therefore done nothing wrong.  In 2015 their sales were £5.3billion, with a profit of £34.4m and paid tax of £11.9m.  Additionally there have been recent accusations against Amazon regarding their treatment of staff and their employment practices; they have been accused of over-packaging, which is a wider environmental issue; they have been accused of treating some of their suppliers poorly (see weblinks below for further details).

Using this case, identify two theories/models of CSR.  Then analyse the level of CSR development that is evidenced by

a) Amazon’s policies and statements about ethical and CSR issues and

b) Amazon’s activities in regard to paying tax and other business practices such as employment practices, treatment of suppliers and so on.

You should use the websites listed below, a range of text books and at least two peer-reviewed journal articles to support your analysis.

Sources for CSR information

https://www.csrhub.com/CSR_and_sustainability_information/Amazoncom-Inc

http://www.salon.com/2014/02/23/worse_than_wal_mart_amazons_sick_brutality_and_secret_history_of_ruthlessly_intimidating_workers/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25034598

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/01/week-amazon-insider-feature-treatment-employees-work

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/02/amazon-pay-self-published-authors-per-page-read-kindle

Sources for Amazon Articles on Tax Avoidance used above:

http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/commentanalysis/corporatewatch/isittimetoboycottamazon.aspx

http://www.theweek.co.uk/business/tax-avoidance/53052/amazon-tax-avoidance-%C2%A33m-tax-%C2%A34bn-uk-sales

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29519631

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-3139123/Amazon-pays-just-11-9m-tax-5-3bn-worth-UK-sales.html

Question 3 – Stakeholder Issues in The Red Cross and Red Crescent Case Study

The Red Cross and the Red Crescent organisations provide humanitarian support to people in vulnerable situations due to war and natural disasters.  The organisations also help in providing support to lonely people in European countries not subject to the more publicised stresses from war or natural disaster.

You should begin by reading thoroughly the material presented at the websites www.redcross.org.uk and www.icrc.org/en

The Red Cross and Red Crescent organisations operate with respect for a number of unchanging principles. These principles are

·          Humanity

·          Impartiality

·          Neutrality

·          Independence

·          Voluntary Service

·          Unity

·          Universality

Consider how these principles might work or fail to work in practice.  To help you, consider the two developments below:-

1.        At a national level, the Finnish Red Cross has been appealing for student volunteers to come forward to help reduce the social isolation of lonely and disadvantaged people.  Whilst this is a good intention, it raises the question of the connection between government and voluntary agencies.  This role and these activities were previously administered by government using national taxation which is now being taken on by the voluntary sector.  We should consider the implications of this change.

2.        You can see within the Red Cross website that the John Lewis partnership, a large retailing group in the UK and the insurance company Aviva have joined the Disaster Relief Alliance.   This raises a question regarding the role of the private sector in this area and whether there are any moral conflicts present here.

Using this example, identify a range of internal and external stakeholders involved in the organisation and use a stakeholder map to plot their relative importance.  Justify your decisions using relevant theory.  Evaluate the different expectations four key stakeholders might have in relation to CSR practices, using the information provided in the case study above.  Your discussion should include Milton Friedman’s viewpoint and a range of other sources including two peer-reviewed journal articles to support your work.

Question 4 – Personal Case Study

Identify a range of future trends in CSR, justifying why you feel these are significant.  Then reflect on how these trends will affect organisations in future, and in particular how they might impact on your future in the workplace.  You should clearly outline what kind of organisation you would like to work in, and use this as a case to specifically discuss how this would affect you.  Remember that as well as working for a multi-national organisation, you could work in the public sector, for a small or medium-sized organisation, for a charity, or set up your own business.

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING POINTS:

You will NOT gain marks for simply explaining what an organisation or sector has done.  You should ensure that the majority of your answer is used to analyse the information using relevant theories.

Each answer is worth 25% of the final mark and should be approximately 875 words in length.  You may fail one question (i.e. a mark below 40%) and still pass the whole assignment IF the overall total achieved a mark of 40% or more.