Individual Report – the brief

For this assignment, students will be focusing on a selection of responsible business topics, discussing the nature and importance of the topics and their relevance to the concept of responsible business. We require you to prepare a report that includes the following aspects:

1. Introduction; briefly outline purpose, aims and objectives of the report (100 words)

2. Briefly consider what constitutes ‘responsible business’ (300 - 400 words).

There are diverse interpretations of this concept and youare expected to draw on a range of academic and practitioner sources to reflect this range of views and interpretations. It will also be relevant to compare/contrast/contextualise the term ‘responsible business’ with other related concepts such as corporate responsibility, sustainability/sustainable business, social enterprise and corporate social responsibility (CSR).

3.Choose oneof the term 1lecture topics listed below, then review, and evaluate its influences on approaches to business (800 - 1000 words).

You should choose one of the following topics from term 1 (note that Political Drivers of Responsible Business are considered in part 4 of this brief):

- Ecological Issues
- Ethical Business
- Social Enterprise
- Social and Ethical Capital
- Ethical Consumerism
- Responsible Business and Competitive Advantage
- Pressure Groups
- Corporate Governance.

For the review and evaluation of your chosen topic, you should draw on relevant exs to:

- describe the nature of the topic/issue
- Discuss its significance and impacton business behaviour in society (bear in mind that impact can be direct and/or indirect).

You should find that the tutorial(s) and worksheet(s) material related to your chosen topic provides a useful basis for your in-depth topic review and evaluation, always bearing in mind the assessment criteria outlined below (for ex, on use of academic material).However, the topic review and evaluation should reflect your own individual research on the topic, not just lecture and tutorial material.

4. Evaluate the role of Government as an influencer/enabler or barrier to responsible business approaches, and in relation to your chosen topic (300 - 500 words).

While you should focus your discussion on Government and your chosen topic, these are likely to overlap with some or all of the other topics covered during term 1.

5. Conclusion; briefly summarise the main points from within the report (300 words)

Throughout your report you must draw on appropriate academic concepts, models and the general academic literature in this subject area; see further guidelines below. Little or no reference to theory will result in a fail.

Submit one report with a word limit of 2000 words (+ or – 10%),  point 12 font, single spaced.  Specify the word count at the end of the report. (NB. Diagrams do not add to the word count and, if relevant to the text, should be included in the text.)

Resources:

See Moodle unit area for further details on resources, namely: lecture slides, tutorial worksheets, Reading List, Plagiarism and Referencing Guidelines, Report Writing guidelines.