Assignment Purposes/Learning Outcomes: After completion of Assignment-1 studen

Assignment Purposes/Learning Outcomes:
After completion of Assignment-1 students will able to understand the
LO 1.1: State the concept of management functions, roles, skills of a manager and the different theories of management.
LO 3.2: Demonstrate organization’s role in ethics, diversity, and social responsibility.

Assignment-1 Please go through the Caselet and answer the questions that follows. (Length of each answer should not be less then 200 words)
Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate social responsibility rests at the top of a pyramid of a corporation’s obligations, right up there with economic, legal, and ethical obligations. Corporate social Responsibility and environmental awareness has become an essential requirement for organizations. Organizations have realised that they must listen to all stakeholders if they are to achieve their goals, short term as well as long term.
With the rising awareness about Sustainable Development, Corporations around the world are under enormous pressure & struggling with a new role regarding the Sustainable Development which is to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs. Organizations are being called upon to take responsibility for the ways their operations impact societies and the natural environment. They are also being asked to apply sustainability principles to the ways in which they conduct their business.
In considering the triple bottom line(3Ps), an organization has a responsibility to its employees and to the wider community (people); is committed to sustainable development (planet); and includes the costs of pollution, worker displacement; has a responsibility to other factors in its financial calculations (profit), matters high in the minds of many of today’s consumers.
The combination of environmental responsibility, ethics and profits is one that is attracting increasing attention. Many chief executive officers of leading companies now disagree with the idea that the interests of shareholders and those of other stakeholders (employees, community, customers and so on) must always conflict. Increasingly, corporations seek to weld these two seemingly opposite forces so that ‘doing good’ and ‘doing good business’ become the same thing.
Social and environmental responsibility has moved from a ‘nice to do’ to a ‘need to do’. The importance of the employee has been highlighted by the so-called ‘war for talent’. Recruiting the brightest and best has become a key concern, says a human resources manager at Price Water House Coopers: ‘There is such a limited number of the right type of graduates, and they are choosy about the type of company they will work for. The cost of recruiting and retaining staff is likely to be higher if you are not seen to be an ethical employer and organisation.’ A company’s reputation also has significant implications for its financial performance. Analysts believe it is one of the key factors in the valuation of companies. One company could have a higher stock market valuation than another one solely due to its good social and environmental reputation.
Multinational Corporation Shell, is having the worst reputations among environmental and social pressure groups, has made enormous efforts to reinvent itself as a socially responsible business. It has stated its aims as nothing less than to become ‘the leading multinational in economic, environmental and social responsibility’. Shell’s chairman has said that the reason for Shell’s conversion to environmental protection is: ‘We won’t achieve our business goals unless we are listening to and learning from the full range of our stakeholders in society.’
Questions
Part A
1. Define Ethics. Explain how an organization can protect Whistle-Blowers.(2)
2. Explain Socially Responsible Business. Critically examine the opposing and supporting viewpoints of Corporate Social Responsibility.(2)
3. Discuss the likely cost and benefits for Shell’s working towards being seen as ‘the leading multinational corporation in economic, environmental and social responsibility’. (2)
4.Critically evaluate whether businesses should change their strategies of corporate responsibility over time. (2)
Part B
5. How do you feel about having a manager’s responsibility in today’s world characterized by uncertainty, ambiguity, and sudden changes or threats from the environment? Describe some skills and qualities that are important to managers under these conditions. (2)
Sources:
Corporate Social Responsibility & Sustainable Business: A Guide to Leadership, Tasks & Functions by Alessia D’Amato, S. Henderson & S. Florence
Management: A Practical Introduction (10th edition), by Angelo Kinicki & Denise Breaux Soignet.
www.BusinessManagementIB.com (adapted and modified)