Assignment: Formative Submission

Task: Research and Write a Business Report that Addresses the Question:

‘How Ethical are Major Internet Companies?'

Methodology:

Write a Business report with the following report headings and content:

• ‘Introduction'

o Briefly describe that you are going to report on the ethical standards and actions of the following major internet companies:

- Google
- Dell
- Apple
- Facebook

o You will do this by conducting a short survey, locating and summarizing the company's Ethical and/or Code of Conduct policies, comparing their ethical policies with their actions, and drawing some conclusions about their ethical behaviour.

• ‘What do People Think?'

o Survey 10 people and ask: How ethical do you think each of the following companies is?
o Rate the answers from 1-10 (totally unethical to completely ethical)
o Report the average result for each company in a table
o Report your own initial ethical rating of the same companies

• ‘Ethical/Code of Conduct Policies'

o Locate the ethical policy/code of conduct for each company
o Suggestion: Search ethics policy or code of conduct
o Write a brief summary of the policy
o Briefly describe how each compare to the policy statements of the others? Longest/shortest, easiest to read/full of air, strongest stand/weakest, etc.

• ‘Ethical Behaviour'

o Locate and briefly describe any reports of unethical conduct by the companies (maximum 3).
o Suggestion: Search unethical
o Do these reports match the companies' policies?

• ‘Australian Tax'

o Locate reports of the tax paid in Australia by the companies
o Do these companies pay a fair share of tax in Australia?

• ‘Summary'

o Are the companies as ethical as they claim?
o Are some companies better than others?
o Do you have any recommendations for better ethical behaviour?
o Having done the research, what is you final ethical rating for the companies

Format:

- A4 Sized pages
- Printed on one side
- 2.54 (1') Margins all around
- Times New Roman or Calibri font
- Major Headings 14pt Bold, Minor Headings 12pt Bold, body text 12pt
- Spell checked, correct English usage
- A blank line between paragraphs
- File in PDF format
- Length: Are you going to ask your boss how many words to write in a report???

Do Not:

- Do not use academic referencing. A business report does not use referencing.
- To indicate where the information in your report comes from, use URLs (internet address) in the text E.G.
- This is an individual assignment - do not commit plagiarism!

o Copy from some other student
o Copy from the internet (You may quote and paraphrase, but don't copy great slabs of text)
o Pay someone else to write your report (I may ask for copies of you draft work)

- Anti-plagiarism software such as Turn-It-In will be use.