Group Assignment of Business Ethics course

Group Assignment (20%)

- Form of group: 5 members/group
- Type of assignment: Group presentation in class, submitting a handout power
point
- Time: presenting (20 minutes) + Q&A (10 minutes)
You will be randomly assigned to a group and then your group will choose a
topic. I will assign the groups the second week of class.
Topic 1: Analysis of the raised ethical issues in functional business
perspectives
This assignment will require you to find the raised ethical issues in functional
perspectives (including Marketing, Human Resource Management, Accounting &
Finance, Environmental management), and to analyze it in light of the relevant
moral reasoning, and suggest recommendation for the issues.
Topic 2: Analysis of a Business Code of Ethics
This assignment will require you to find a code of ethics from corporations and to
analyze it in light of the relevant moral principles discussed (i.e., Utilitarianism;
Theory of morality; and theory of Justice) and identify which, if any, moral
principle(s) have guided the production of the code of ethics. For this assignment
you may want to focus on more well-developed codes of ethics, perhaps even
choosing one from a business sector within which you are interested in working.
Your write-up should focus on analysis not description or summary of the codes.
Topic 3: Analysis of a Corporate Social Responsibility issues
This assignment will require you to identify a Corporate Social Responsibility
issue in the business of a firm, refer and use your personal and studied ethical
principles in your analysis then offer a solution.
Your write-up should focus on analysis not description or summary of CSR
policies of the firm
(Guideline: A guide to ethical case analysis and organisational research)

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 A guide to ethical case analysis and
organizational research
Context of the case situation
What is the organisational, managerial and business context described in
the case?
Does the case have specific business (e.g. competitive) or public sector
(e.g. political) issues in the background?
What is (are) the source(s) of the information in the case?
How reliable is the reported factual background?
Are there obvious sources of bias in the reporting (intentional, as when a
protagonist is explicitly arguing a given point of view, or unintentional)?
Does the report involve statements of opinion or judgement which may be
hard to objectively verify?
Who are the stakeholders? Who are the directly involved participants and
decision makers?
What is their background (including professional, managerial and technical
attributes)?
What are the relevant organisational, social and cultural issues?
How reliable is the particular information relating to the actions and
motivation of the key participants?
Dilemmas
What moral dilemmas are revealed in the case study?
Who are the decision makers facing a dilemma?
Are there conflicts of interest?
What information is available relevant to the moral dilemmas?
What information was available to each stakeholder at different points of
time described in the case?
What arguments are presented in the case in support of each stated moral
stance?
Theories and argument
What theories are potentially relevant to the case?
The following may be used as a short checklist or reference made to the
theory profiling contained later in this chapter.
Consequence-based theories:
1. Egoism (whether self or relating to a small group)
2. Utilitarianism (how broad a range of stakeholders?)

Rights-based theories:

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1. Rights, duties, obligations (to whom and why?)
2. Liberty and freedom of action (e.g. a right to manage)
For any theory under consideration, what is the ethical acceptability of the moral
stance of each of the key participants?
Do the theories considered provide a consistent evaluation of each moral
stance?
Recommendations
How might the main actors have done things differently (change short-
term behaviour or change procedures and systems)
What changes in policy or behaviour would you suggest in the light of
the above analysis?
How might such changes in policy or behaviour be implemented?
Note that it is important you support your recommendations in terms of
the theories used in the analysis.

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