Topic 20 Corporate Social Responsibility & Ethics

@swajal -in principle this approach should be fine. You will in addition (a) need to explore what the current CSR issues are that have been affecting this sector in particular (how has the fall in oil price and volatility in the market impacted ? Have social and charitable initiatives declined accordingly for example? Have any projects been ‘mothballed’ and staff laid off as a consequence?) and (b) read through all the posts on this forum if you haven’t already done so as there is a lot of helpful advice on here (and I really don’t have the time to repeat it all).

To pass the marker expects to see you have researched widely from several angles

Can anyone please help me to learn how to set my Research Objectives and Research Question for topic 20. I am a bit confused.

Thanks

Some interesting articles on companies’ failures to protect customer data are worth exploring.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2014-data-breaches/
https://uk.businessinsider.com/talktalk-uk-government-report-significant-fines-companies-hacked-vulnerabilities-sql-injection-dido-harding-bonus-2016-6

This is something you could research for your chosen company. Your company does not necessarily have to be an offender – however as part of the stakeholder analysis with regard to customers (and/ or employees) you could bring this issue in.

The requirement to ensure integrity of customer/ employee data is an overlap between good governance and CSR, so if anyone is doing T17 as opposed to T20 the articles may also be relevant

Anyone doing an American company should consider the tax issues – as illustrated in the recent EU v Apple case. Whether the company is doing anything illegal is not necessarily the main issue – as I have pointed out before: is it morally acceptable for overseas companies to earn significant amounts of revenue in certain jurisdictions but give little back in the form of taxes and does this give them an unfair advantage over domestic companies who are unable to move operations to make huge tax savings.

Things like this are something that allow you to introduce some critical thought into your work (and potentially get a better grade) if you explore and develop the issues thoroughly

Thanks a lot. I would like to contact if I face any difficulty further.

@trephena
I am currently stuck in part 3 of my RAP (T20), anyone who can give me ideas on how my contents for the part 3 would be really appreciated
Thanks.

There are lots of ideas on this forum for developing your arguments and approaches in the Evaluation section so please read through. A degree is about working things out for yourself after all.

Yes if you apply those models well it should work -again I have discussed these elsewhere on this forum.

Regular readers to this forum will know that I frequently bang on about large corporations avoiding tax liabilities. This discussion paper may be particularly useful to those students overseas as it looks at why big companies ought to take a more responsible and ethical approach to paying tax particularly in developing nations. It may help you assess the arguments in relation to your chosen company.

https://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/getting-to-good-towards-responsible-corporate-tax-behaviour-582243

Hi all I’m looking to undertake T20 but I’m getting a bit bogged down by the topic title. You’ll have to forgive me but I have zero academic experience so all this report writing and topics are new to me.

My quandary is this;
I’m looking to focus on Tesco ‘Fair for Farmers Guarantee’ (FFFG) as a CSR policy but my worry is that this is too narrow as the topic mentions CSR policies (eg plural). Now the FFFG does cover three aspects, Fair payment for milk, 100% British milk and cows being well cared for so I suppose I could argue polices. But to get a good grade will I need to cover all of Tesco’s CSR policies or just cover these three well, by comparing and contrasting to benchmarks such as best in practice supermarkets, expected welfare and dairy industry standards?

The thing is I’m really interested in tax and big business and so I’m looking to investigate Tesco’s taxation policy (oh look their head office is in Luxembourg) and how this may match or take away from the ethics and FFFG. But my other worry is that I am shoehorning this in based on my love of taxation and it’s effect on ethical business decisions that I may stray too far.

It’s just if I get an A for the project I’ll get a 1st class degree and I have noticed that Oxford are doing an Msc in Taxation but guessing I’ll need a 1st to get in with a sniff of entering for this. So any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Trephena

That was my sneaky suspicion and so glad I asked the question.

I’ll check Google Scholar see what is about and start digging a little further.

Many thanks

hi trephena
could you please suggest how i could use the Star model and Tripple bottom line relevant to the CSR in the auto industry.

thanks alot

The submission checklist for Topic 20 can be found on page 3

-then scroll down

(Though written for an earlier submission period it is still valid for period 34)

To attempt new Topic 20 successfully and to have sufficient discussion I think you should try to be able to criticise the company you choose on AT LEAST 3 of its ACTUAL CSR aspects. In a nutshell the new topic (and in fact the old to a certain extent) requires you to challenge what the company says it does with what it actually does using relevant fairly recent examples and supporting evidence from articles from the business press.

In answer to what ‘Weak social responsibility practices’ means I have offered some examples.

@trephena said:
‘Weak social responsibility practices’ refers to where companies are not doing enough to be good corporate citizens compared with other companies. As an example in the UK with Starbucks – they make various claims in their CSR statement but the reality shows a different picture or the company attempts to disguise the facts e.g. proclamations about recycling however very few (I think it is less than 10%) of their paper cups are recycled; they say they pay all their tax due however whilst this may be strictly true they arrange their tax affairs and have complex transfer pricing mechanisms so that on paper they show low profits and pay artificially low amounts of tax; recently food hygiene inspectors discovered high levels of faecal bacteria in ice destined for customers drinks due to poor staff training and low standards of hygiene.

Some of the issues are not just confined to Starbucks but probably extended to others (I know that the same inspectors found poor hygiene in other major coffee operators and fast food chains) and the tax issue is found in many global organisations. What it means is that by not paying fair amounts of tax such companies take money from communities but give little back whereas local coffee shops and restaurants not only pay their fair share of tax but tend to give something back too as they also tend to use local suppliers and services (which in turn minimises their carbon footprint).

Another thing is that companies will emphasise charitable initiatives but these should be viewed against executive pay and dividends to shareholders and I have found sometimes there is an inverse relationship between how much space in the annual report is given over to telling people about their charity donations etc and the actual physical amounts given away. Also be aware that with some company foundations and charitable trusts as much money comes from donations from the public as from the company but the latter glosses over this fact to promote a picture of inflated philanthropy.

Another area where companies are economical with the truth is supply chain -I know one French cosmetic chain claims it has an award for its water usage, water recycling and energy use. This makes it look ‘green’. However the reality is that its face creams are over packaged in larger plastic jars than needed (so the it looks as if there is more in the jar from its external appearance). Not only is there deception in trying to make the customers think they are getting more product than they are but the large plastic tubs are imported so the waste of plastic, the toxic substances used in the manufacture of plastics and the energy used to create the jars does not enter the energy and sustainability calculations of the French firm so these negatives are ignored. However a company serious about being a good corporate citizen would not just simplify and minimise its own carbon footprint ( having simpler product packaging and less plastic waste but would look at its supply chain and try to influence good practices there to encourage best practices in every aspect of sustainability and environmental issues.

To do the new topic 20 well you need to read up on what constitutes good practice (maybe the Global Reporting Initiative could be a helpful resource here and put a few key words in and use Google Scholar as a search engine to find articles). Then you will need to research the practices of a few companies to help you decide on a company to use. Remember on its own the company’s CSR statement will be next to useless -it must be used with caution therefore and applied in an appropriate context. However the CSR statement could be helpful when you want to compare reality (what really happens) with myth (what the statement says) or perhaps occasionally to show that the statement is true as you have found external sources that support it.