Students have to select ONE company with a CSR strategy (See resources for usefu

Students have to select ONE company with a CSR strategy (See resources for useful links on Moodle). The selected company can be from any country, but it is important to select companies that disclose information about themselves and publish CSR and Sustainability related information in the form of Sustainability/CSR/Non-Financial Reports. The CSR strategy is to be critically assessed in the following way:
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1. First, students should EVALUATE the quality and nature of the CSR strategy based on the 7 core subjects (and 37 issues) of the ISO 26 000 framework. This process of evaluation has to be evidence-based, namely, concrete information in company Sustainability/CSR/Non-Financial Reports will have to be matched with the topics and criteria included in the ISO 26000 framework. In their paper, students are expected to follow the logic of the CSR framework to evaluate the collected data on their selected company. Thus, for the ISO 26000 framework, students are expected to follow the logic of the 7 core subjects in their evaluation.
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2. Second, based on the results of the first evaluation part, students have to ANALYSE and ASSESS the companies’ CSR strategies by focusing on the following criteria:
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· To what extent does the CSR strategy have a close integration with strategic business goals? Explain how.
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· To what extent is the company transparent? What are the “blind spots” of the company’s CSR activities?
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· What are the most innovative CSR practices of the company? What makes them innovative?
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· What are the CSR practices that have the greatest positive and negative environmental or social impact?
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· What are the overall strengths and weaknesses of the company’s CSR strategy and practices based on the systematic EVALUATION and ANALYSIS?
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3. Thirdly, students should FORMULATE RECOMMENDATIONS on how the CSR strategy could be better aligned with business strategy and upgraded based on the ISO 26000 framework. Recommendations should follow logically based on the EVALUATION and ANALYSIS.
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To increase the reliability of data on companies, it is required that students search for independent sources about the company in addition to company publications. A minimum of 5 independent critical articles are expected to be integrated into the evaluation and analysis process.
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Structure and length of the assignment:
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· Introduction
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· EVALUATION of the company level CSR strategy with the ISO 26000 framework
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· ANALYSIS of CSR practices based on the pre-set criteria
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· RECOMMENDATIONS on how to develop the CSR strategy
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· CONCLUSIONS on the CSR framework and CSR in general.
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· References (min. 5 independent articles + 3 academic sources + company reports and materials)
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· Appendix
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The length of the paper should be 2250 words long +/-10% (1,5 line spacing, and 12 font size).