Student Number: (enter on the line below

Student Name: (enter on the line below)

HC2121
COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
FINAL ASSESMENT
TRIMESTER 1, 2021
Assessment Weight: 50 total marks
Instructions:
● All questions must be answered by using the answer boxes provided in this paper.

● Completed answers must be submitted to Blackboard by the published due date

and time.
●

● Submission instructions are at the end of this paper.

Purpose:
This assessment consists of six (6) questions and is designed to assess your level of
knowledge of the key topics covered in this unit.

Students who cite a minimum of 12 peer-reviewed academic articles (in total) in the text to
support their assertions and list all references appropriately at the end of the report using
Harvard referencing style may receive higher marks than those who do not cite relevant
materials. References provided must follow ‘Reference Requirements’ detailed on page 3-4.

HC2121 Final Assessment T1 2021

Question 1 ( 7 marks)
How can corporations measure the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative?
Analyse how ethics contributes to employee commitment and customer satisfaction. Support
your claims/arguments with key research findings. (Answer this question in 300 words).

ANSWER: ** Answer box will enlarge as you type

CSR is a business approach that contributes to sustainable development by delivering economic,
social and environmental benefits for all stakeholders. Social responsibility is important to a
business. It demonstrates to both the consumers and media that the company takes an interest
in wider social issues that have no direct impact on social margins.
Measurement of CRS-
CRS can be measured by three levels-
1. Principles of social responsibility- this principle is mainly based on the firm’s core
responsibilities as a business entity. This principle underlines the institutional connection
between society and business and defines the expectation of the business.
2. Process of social responsiveness- this policy suggests the ability of a business organisation to
survive by adapting the environment of the business as much as possible and must be able to
analyse the data and react to this.
3. Outcomes of social responsibility- it is the main target of the measurement, to determine
whether CSR makes any difference, all the stakeholders related to a particular issue or
complexity must be included in any performance appraisal (Wang, Hsieh and Sarkis, 2018, p6(4)).
There are three things, which need to be considered that includes the impact of internal
stakeholders that affects the firm’s stakeholders, the influence of the external stakeholders
raising the concerns about the impact of corporate activities on individuals or groups outside the
firm, and the impact of external institutions.
Ethics generally contributes to the employee’s commitment. Generally, no business
implemented any rules or policies regarding the employee's personal ethics, such as smoking.
However, sometimes, it can be illegal. However, a person’s ethics plays a major role in evaluating
his or her preferences towards his or her work. In other words, a person’s experiences and
decisions in their personal life can be quite different from his or her work experience and
decisions. Ethics contributes to the satisfaction of the customer. Every salesman’s ethics
indicates that he or she must help the customers to find the right product irrespective of the
company’s revenue. A company must give the right information about their products to build the
customer’s trust. Making a policy of returns, if the customers get any damage in the company’s
product, and then the company must take the responsibility and change the product for the
satisfaction of the customers.

Question 2 (7 marks)
What are normative business ethics, and how can their application enable a business to create
an ethical atmosphere? Discuss your opinion and support your claims/arguments with key
research findings. (Answer this question in 300 words).

ANSWER:
Business ethics includes standards and principles that guide behaviour in the business world.
Institutionalisation in business ethics connects to the implementing laws, customs, and the
expected organisational programs that are considered to be normative in creating a reputation.
Normative business ethics is actually the learning of "what should exist" in the business platform.
Its evaluation depends on the normal normative ethics, which distribute as a core theory, but
that evaluation represents the requests of the general theory to the moral difficulty in the
business (Laczniak and Murphy, 2019, p1(2)). Normative ethics look after the standards or norms
for conduct.
Normative business ethics provides innovative ideas to support the society of the human,
ensuring the objective of the good lives by analysing information that is related to the idea of
wisdom. Through this, it helps to create an ethical atmosphere (Huda, 2019, p1(1)).
Normative ethics is the main bundle of thoughts in moral philosophy, along with met ethics (that
is, the understanding of the principle of ethics) and apple ethics (that is, inquiry of the
contentious issues of ethics). It generates and safeguards the moral principles of virtue; it
consists of deontology, resultant, and goodness of ethics. These principles based on the
favourable resultants of the actions, sometimes the principles considered obligatory,
nevertheless of the repercussion, and ultimately it focuses on the moral characters, goodness,
of a particular individual in the society (Hessick, 2021, p15 (1)).
The golden rule is a perfect example of normative business ethics. What one does with someone
will come back to him also at the same time.

Question 3 (11 marks)

Explain your opinion as to whether a crime can ever be overlooked because the offending act
was for the greater good of others. Provide an example of when this might be the case, following
a philosophical perspective. Support your claims/arguments with key research findings. (Answer
this question in 300 words).

ANSWER:
A person commits a crime if he behaves in a way that meets every element of a crime. Every
crime consists of three elements- first, the time of the conduct, second, the mental situation of
the individual during the crime and third, effectiveness between law and effect. Crimes are
generally divided into four categories: misconduct, felony, united crime, and strict accountability
crime. Common law includes nine major crimes that include murder, rape, theft, firebombing,
manslaughter, and pedication, and various felonies (e.g., assault, false imprisonment, liar,
menacing of the judge etc.). The American code is much broader than ordinary law or common
law. Nevertheless, the power of Congress to make criminal laws was limited (Criminal Law, 2021,
p2 (4)).

Recently, in the news, the United States has been locked by nationwide protests over the death
of an African -American man in police custody. The story of the case was George Floyd, a 46-
year-old gentleman who was choked and pinned down to the floor by a policeman named Mr
Derek Chauvin. Within 30 minutes, Mr Floyd died due to suffocation. Due to this case people, of
the USA warmed up, and they protested all over the nation and the policeman, Mar. Derek was
arrested all over the nation, and the policeman, Mr Derek, was arrested with second-degree
murder (REN and NEWMAN, 2021 p3(1)).
This protest resulted all over the nation, and it is a violation of the law of the right to protest
because this protest initiates the US people and heats up the environment of the USA. The right
to protest means the right to freedom of speech, right to freedom of assembly. However, in this
law, of the right to protest, it is clearly mentioned that anybody can express their feeling but
cannot instigate people to do that. So even after doing a good job, he or she will be considered a
criminal if he or she violates the law as, in the USA, the constitution is the supreme.

Question 4 (11 marks)

What happens if an employee refuses to take a drug test at work? Does it matter if the test is for
Marijuana in a state where marijuana use is legal? Discuss your opinion and support your
claims/arguments with key research findings. (Answer this question in 300 words).
HC2121 Final Assessment T1 2021
ANSWER:
If an employee refuses to take a drug test at the workplace, then the person must be subjected
to corrective action and may lose the job. Being fired for ignoring to take the drug test on the
grounds of a wrongful Termination Lawsuit is common. But, the employees must have the right
to privacy according to the constitution and, normally speaking, about the law that forbids the
employers from getting a drug test, only the employment has started.
Most employers want their employees to have a drug testing report both after and before being
hired in the company, which is very necessary to do. They mainly want reasonable intuition
before an employee's drug test. After the current legalisation of Marijuana in a few states,
employees can still be penalised for testing as positive. The penalisation for a breakdown drug
test may involve improvement, stoppage, and also the loss of benefits of unemployment
(Midwest New Media, 2021,p2(1)). So this shouldn't be legal, and also, the test must be
conducted as if Marijuana becomes legal, then it might affect the working environment, peace
and also affect other employees health and mental condition. It will disturb the whole working
system, and it may be possible that few more employees start taking Marijuana if not stopped at
the initial stage.
However, the laws of Marijuana are facing rapid change, as most of the states are getting
legalised in some way or other. For example, few states have legitimised Marijuana instead of
partial or full legalisation (Fersko, Stefanowicz and Wilkes, 2018, p2(1)). But in a few other states,
Marijuana has been legalised, but it is only for medical purposes. Still, if in some states Marijuana
is legal, then also most of the companies want their testing report each and every time to
maintain the working atmosphere of the company.
One of the main policies, which the recent government of Victoria took in this election, was to
legalise medical Marijuana. This creates a difficulty for the Australian employees, with the
American employers struggling for some time, which is named to be, how to implement the
policy of drug testing in the working environment when the positive test for this has a direct
impact on treatment for the employer's disability. Some literature also said that Marijuana is
used heavily, then the person who uses it becomes very fat. The pharmacological impact of
Marijuana gone between 8 to 10 hours. Some lawyers also said that employers who are
subjected to the testing of drugs and who are using this for a medical purpose must reveal these
matters to the employee (Stringham et al. 2017, p2(3)).

Question 5 (7 marks)
How does utilitarianism apply in business, and does this secure an ethical outcome? Discuss your
opinion and support your claims/arguments with key research findings. (Answer this question in
300 words).

ANSWER:
Utilitarianism falls in the category of teleology. It holds the most moral choice that will
manufacture the largest good for the largest number (Refer from notes). Utilitarianism makes
moral actions feasible for the welfare of the people. Utilitarianism concerns about the
repercussions, the largest good for the largest number, and relies on the cost or benefit
evaluation. Utilitarianism provides the way to determine the whole quantity of value or utility
that will produce relative to pain or harm that may result for the economy (Adhitya, and
Prihandini,2020, p2(6)). It is a consequential theory. Its actions are judged by the repercussions,
without considering the motivation, character, or any knowledge of good, and bad, which
separate from their volume to generate pleasure and happiness, just like in business that is
applicable to manage each and everything promptly. Utilitarianism acts based on the possibility
of producing the best for the people and for the people’s satisfaction, just like in business who

HC2121 Final Assessment T1 2021

want the satisfaction of the consumer and want to fulfil the needs of the consumer and for their
pleasure and benefits. Utilitarianism reflects the practicality of human relationships and is also
approved in the world through the actions of the legislature (Utilitarianism: The Greatest Good
for the Greatest Number, 2021, p5(2)).
It is mainly used when the business managers make difficult and critical decisions about several
things, like the closing of the stores, layoffs, hiring, and expansion. Whenever businesspersons
stock what has to be earned and what might be to disappear in the remarkable decision. The
functions of the utility provide the leaders with equipment for analysing the viability of the
projects. It gives them the chance to investigate objections about the impractical and automatic
nature of utilitarianism from a customer's outlook. It motivates every individual and supports
them to raise the efficiency of the organisation (Utilitarianism: The Greatest Good for the
Greatest Number, 2021, p8(2)).
For example, by trading safe and quality products, a business will raise its intrinsic value to meet
the requirements of the customers at each time. With the idea of suffering and pain, the moral
position of utilitarianism is that humans must be happier and must faceless suffering and pain.

Question 6 (7 marks)
Analyse the ethical pros and cons related to overseas manufacturing for a company such as Nike.
Support your claims/arguments with key research findings. (Answer this question in 300 words).

ANSWER:
The ethical pros and cons of overseas manufacturing involve the information about their
products, price, and place of manufacturing and promotion of the product. The ethical issues are
information about the products which include, hide data, duplicate product, quality of the
product etc. the ethical issues in prices of the product are like manipulative pricing, price-fixing,
skimming of price, misleading pricing and all. The ethical issue regarding the place of
manufacturing is the high cost of distribution, shortage of product, geographical differences. The
ethical issue regarding the place of manufacturing is the high cost of distribution, shortage of
products, geographical differences. The ethical issues are in the promotion of products, like false
claims, harm to children, misleading claims, the substitution of advertisements, and high
pressure to sell.
The big advantage that Nike gets from the international business is the low cost. Nike
manufactures shoes in countries where the labour is very cheap; this reduces its costs. Nike has
earned more recognition of the brand by sponsoring eminent teams and athletes in countries
other than America (Polderman, 2020, p1(1)).
Nike's main cons are its bad publicity. The company could face a lot of pressure. Nike's plants in
other countries have working conditions that are considered objectionable in Western countries
and fear of duplicate production in customer’s mind that lowers its image in the eye of the
customers. The social instability and changes of the government in such a country may create a
variety of policies that could severely damage the profit of Nike.

END OF FINAL ASSESSMENT

Submission instructions:

HC2121 Final Assessment T1 2021

 ● Save submission with your STUDENT ID NUMBER and UNIT CODE, e.g. EMV54897
HC2121
● Submission must be in MICROSOFT WORD FORMAT ONLY.

● Upload your submission to the appropriate link on Blackboard

● Only one submission is accepted. Please ensure your submission is the correct
document.
● All submissions are automatically passed through SafeAssign to assess academic
integrity.

Reference requirements
Assessment Design – Adapted Harvard Referencing
Holmes will be implemented as a pilot program a revised Harvard approach to referencing. The
following guidelines apply:
1. Reference sources in assignments are limited to sources that provide full-text access to
the source's content for lecturers and markers.
2. The Reference list should be located on a separate page at the end of the essay and
titled: References.
3. It should include the details of all the in-text citations, arranged A-Z alphabetically by
author surname. In addition, it MUST include a hyperlink to the full text of the cited
reference source.
4. For example;
5. P Hawking, B McCarthy, A Stein (2004), Second Wave ERP Education, Journal of
Information Systems Education, Fall, http://jise.org/Volume15/n3/JISEv15n3p327.pdf
6. All assignments will require additional in-text reference details, which will consist of the
surname of the author/authors or name of the authoring body, year of publication, page
number of content, the paragraph where the content can be found.
7. For example;
8. "The company decided to implement an enterprise-wide data warehouse business
intelligence strategies (Hawking et al., 2004, p3(4))."

Non-Adherence to Referencing Guidelines

HC2121 Final Assessment T1 2021
 Where students do not follow the above guidelines:
1. Students who submit assignments that do not comply with the guidelines will be asked
to resubmit their assignments.
2. Late penalties will apply, as per the Student Handbook each day, after the student/s
have been notified of the resubmission requirements.
3. Students who comply with guidelines and the citations are “fake” will be reported for
academic misconduct.

Reference list

Huda, M., 2019. Empowering application strategy in the technology adoption: insights from professional
and ethical engagement. Journal of Science and Technology Policy
Management.https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JSTPM-09-2017-0044/
full/html

Hessick, C.E., 2021. The Effects of Normative Ethics Perspectives on Moral Disengagement and Ethics
Behavioral Intentions (Doctoral dissertation, University of South
Alabama).https://www.ProQuest.com/OpenView/60c065b93e8807f1429898ea6826ca6e/1?PQ-
origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y

Criminal Law, 2021. Criminal Law. [online] LII / Legal Information Institute. Available at:
<https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/criminal_law> [Accessed 17 June 2021].

Midwest New Media, L., 2021. Drug Testing - Workplace Fairness. [online] Workplacefairness.org.
Available at: <https://www.workplacefairness.org/drug-testing-workplace> [Accessed 17 June 2021].

Utilitarianism: The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number, 2021. Utilitarianism: The Greatest Good for
the Greatest Number. [online] Opentextbc.ca. Available at:
<https://opentextbc.ca/businessethicsopenstax/chapter/utilitarianism-the-greatest-good-for-the-greatest-
number/> [Accessed 17 June 2021].

Wang, Z., Hsieh, T.S. and Sarkis, J., 2018. CSR performance and the readability of CSR reports: Too good to
be true?. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 25(1), pp.66-
79.https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/csr.1440

Polderman, M., 2020. Responsiveness, Cost-Efficiency and Sustainability in The Global Apparel Supply
Chain: Towards an Integral Approach on Manufacturing Location Decisions A Nike Inc. Case study (Doctoral
dissertation, University of Groningen. Faculty of Economics and Business).https://feb.student
theses.ub.rug.nl/26316/

Adhitya, B. and Prihandini, W., 2020. Business Ethics Utilitarianism Perspective on Financial Engineering
and The Impact to The Company.https://www.aijbm.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/J349498.pdf

Stringham, C., Allard, I., Knapp, S. and Minor, M., 2017. Medical Marijuana in the work place: keeping small
business informed. Small Business Institute Journal, 13(1), pp.16-
29.https://sbij.org/index.php/SBIJ/article/view/264

Fersko, J., Stefanowicz, L.C. and Wilkes, C.J., 2018. Legal’Marijuana: The Implications for Commercial Real
Estate. NJ LAW., Oct., 314, pp.2018-
at.https://www.greenbaumlaw.com/media/publication/511_NJLawyer_Oct_JF-LCS-CJW.pdf
HC2121 Final Assessment T1 2021
RENY, T. Y. L. E. R. T. and NEWMAN, B. E. N. J. A. M. I. N. J. (2021) The Opinion-Mobilising Effect of Social
Protest against Police Violence: Evidence from the 2020 George Floyd Protests. American Political Science
Review. Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–9. DOI: 10.1017/S0003055421000460.

Laczniak, G.R. and Murphy, P.E., 2019. The role of normative marketing ethics. Journal of Business
Research, 95, pp.401-407.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0148296318303552

HC2121 Final Assessment T1 2021