Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics

First Individual Assignment (25% of final grade)

Choose one of the following as the subject of your assignment:

·       A company you worked for, even part-time. If this is a large firm, then make your focus the local branch or section in which you were involved;
or

·       A club or organisation with which you were or are involved;
or

·       Failing the above, a small or medium-sized institution you know very well. This could be your school, for instance.

What’s important here is that you can complete this assignment based on your own personal experience with this organisation, not primarily through researching online.

From a CSR perspective, produce a one-page mindmap of all the responsibilities that your organisation could be considered to have, based on ISO26000. This is not a mapping of stakeholders.  You should cover at a minimum the seven “core subjects” of the ISO-26000 Social Responsibility standard (see below). You can read more about the standard at https://www.iso.org/publication/PUB100258.html However, the map should be tailored specifically for your organisation, and so may include other headings which are relevant. It must have a level of detail that allows the reader to understand what the main issues are for the organisation.  For each branch of the organisation, use colour or icons or some equivalent graphic to indicate on which responsibilities the organisation is performing well, and on which it falls short of the ideal. If you chose not to include a particular subject in your mind map you must provide your rationale for why you did not think it was relevant to the organisation.

There are some resources on mindmapping in the required readings for the course. You can make it online, by hand, or using Word, PowerPoint or Excel. Here’s a useful video https://youtu.be/xges9V4rLms  The main thing is that it should be legible, clear and useful in giving an overview of your target organisations performance, both the good, and where they fall short. 

The mindmap should be accompanied by a 100-word description of the target organisation and your involvement with it. You may also add up to 500 words of additional explanation of various issues covered in your mindmap. Your assignment is to be submitted as a single document via MyCourses by 23.55 on Tuesday May 10th. You do not need to include a separate title page, but be sure to include your name and student number at the top of the page.

 Ensure the entire submission is in a single document, and check before you upload it to ensure the whole thing is legible. Sometimes images behave a little weirdly when you embed them into something like Word. Powerpoint might be a better choice.

NOTES:

This assessment is a test of critical analysis and research skills as well as your growing understanding of the pillars of CSR. Marks will be given for

-          Depth of understanding

-          Comprehensiveness

-          Clarity of expression

-          Originality

To do well, it’s essential that you choose an organisation of which you have personal experience. It must be your own original work (a random sample may be subject to a short viva), and the mindmap should be detailed enough to give a viewer all the information they need to see where the organisation does well, and where it has room to improve.