Questions:
Assessment Weight: 50 total marks
Instructions:
- All questions must be answered by using the answer boxes provided in this paper.
- Completed answers must be submitted to Blackboard by the published due date and time.
Submission instructions are at the end of this paper.
Purpose:
This assessment consists of six (6) questions and is designed to assess your level of knowledge of the key topics covered in this unit.
Students who cite a minimum of 3 peer-reviewed academic articles (in total) in the text to support their assertions, and list all references appropriately at the end of the report using Harvard referencing style may receive higher marks than those who do not cite relevant materials. References provided must follow ‘Reference Requirements’ detailed on page 5.
Question 1 ( 7 marks)
Terminology such as ‘triple bottom line’, ‘circular economy’ and ‘corporate social responsibility’ is used by pubic relations firms representing major multi national companies. Senior executives launch programs and make speeches in order to appear to be committed to social causes including the environment, equality of opportunity for all ethnicities and a robust democracy.
Think deeply about the motivation of these executives and discuss the concepts of ‘universalism vs. particularism’ as applied to their behaviour.
Support your claims/arguments with any research findings. (Answer this question in 250 words).
Question 2 (7 marks)
Normative business ethics (what ‘should occur’) has been assessed as able to increase profits. Both the culture of a company and its profitability is considered to be impacted by normative business ethics.
Discuss the concept of a universal set of ethical standards that is superior to ‘normative business standards’.
Discuss your opinion and support your claims/arguments with research findings. (Answer this question in 250 words).
Question 3 (11 marks)
Many people believe that “what matters in the long run is the output”. And, that in a modern economy if the benefit is for the entire community it is acceptable to have cheated and lied to get a positive outcome.
Provide an example of when you might have seen this occur and discuss if you think it is acceptable to have acted in an unethical manner to achieve an outcome. Support your claims/arguments with research findings.
Think of universalism and imperative principles. (Answer this question in 300 words)
Question 4 (11 marks)
A USA sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson was been banned from part of the Olympics by the USA Track & Field Asociation because of traces of marijuana in her blood. However she is from Oregon (a state in the USA) and marijuana is legal in Oregon. Bear in mind that this is her work occupation – her job!
Form an opinion and discuss whether you believe she has been treated in an ethical manner.
Discuss your opinion and support your claims/arguments with research findings. (Answer this question in 300 words).
Question 5 (7 marks)
‘Utilitarianism’ is the idea that ‘the best ethical position is the one that produces the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people’. Think about when companies are having difficult financial times and they keep the senior executives who earn a $1,000,000.00 a year and retrench the workers who earn $20,000.00.
Think deeply about this situation where keeping well paid executives and retrenching poorly paid workers occurs and discuss whther you think it is ethical.
Discuss your opinion and support your claims/arguments with research findings. (Answer this question in 250 words).
Question 6 (7 marks)
Analyse the manufacturing of your I-Phone in China by Foxconn. There have been accusations of abuse of workers, child labour, sexual exploitation with result that some workers have committed suicide.
Discuss whether you think it is important that we consumers in first world countries have cheap costs and high quality but that the people who manufacture them suffer from overwork which can drive them to suicide.
Support your claims/arguments with research findings. Think of Hofstede and Trompenaars. (Answer this question in 250 words).
Submission instructions:
- Save submission with your STUDENT ID NUMBER and UNIT CODE e.g. EMV54897 HC2121
- Submission must be in MICROSOFT WORD FORMAT ONLY
- Upload your submission to the appropriate link on Blackboard
- Only one submission is accepted. Please ensure your submission is the correct document.
- All submissions are automatically passed through SafeAssign to assess academic integrity.
Reference requirements
Assessment Design – Adapted Harvard Referencing
Holmes will be implementing as a pilot program a revised Harvard approach to referencing. The following guidelines apply:
- Reference sources in assignments are limited to sources which provide full text access to the source’s content for lecturers and markers.
- The Reference list should be located on a separate page at the end of the essay and titled: References.
- It should include the details of all the in-text citations, arranged alphabetically A-Z by author surname. In addition, it MUST include a hyperlink to the full text of the cited reference source.
For example;
Hawking, P. McCarthy, B. Stein A. (2004), Second Wave ERP Education, Journal of Information Systems Education, Fall, http://jise.org/Volume15/n3/JISEv15n3p327.pdf - All assignments will require additional in-text reference details which will consist of the surname of the author/authors or name of the authoring body, year of publication, page number of content, paragraph where the content can be found.
For example;
“The company decided to implement a enterprise wide data warehouse business intelligence strategies (Hawking et al, 2004, p3(4)).”
Non-Adherence to Referencing Guidelines
Where students do not follow the above guidelines:
- Students who submit assignments which do not comply with the guidelines will encur a 10% penalty.
- Students who comply with guidelines and the citations are “fake” will be reported for academic misconduct.
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