Organisation Studies, CSR and Leadership (Essay Sample)

Assignment Cover Sheet200571 Management Dynamics
School of Business -- Management
Student family name: Student first name: Student number: Unit number and name:200571 Management DynamicsTutorial day: Tutorial time: Tutorial room: Tutor: Title of assignment:Individual written assignment – Organisation studiesLength:1,000 words (± 100 words)Date due:Submit through Turnitin, on or before 11:45PM Sunday of Week 6 (7 September 2014)Date submitted: Campus of enrolment: 
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200571 Management DynamicsWritten assignment #1: Organisation Studies, CSR and Leadership
(Graded; worth 15% of total marks)
Purpose
This written assessment is the first of two that provides students with an exercise to assist in their understanding of two important areas of enquiry in management, viz.: the issues, concepts, themes and principles associated with corporate social responsibility and the leadership shown by managers in adopting, embracing and possibly embedding corporate social responsibility within their organisations. As indicated in the lectures, corporate social responsibility is associated more with a socio-economic view of the organisation whereas the pursuit or focus on maximizing profits (as well as possibly maximizing shareholder returns) is associated more with the neo-liberal or classical view of the organisation. There are some questions still about whether or not adopting, embracing and embedding corporate social responsibility has either a short-term (unlikely) or long-term (more likely) benefit. This would appear to add more weight and responsibility onto the organisation’s leaders if the organisation is to become socially responsible. This written assignment provides you with an opportunity to demonstrate your level of information literacy and your ability to present a cogent and coherent piece of writing that includes appropriate critical analysis relevant to what is outlined below in terms of this assessment. MERELY REPORTING WHAT OTHERS SAY DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN EFFECTIVE ANSWER TO THIS ASSESSMENT. In your critical analysis you should consider the views of others and then argue on what is their contribution in terms of leadership and corporate social responsibility. Completing this assignment will assist you to achieve learning outcomes 1, 2, and 3 shown in the unit outline.
Assessment:
Read ‘The biggest corporate corruption scandal in Australia’s history’ Module 11, Stakeholders, Social Responsibility and Ethics, pp. 634-636.
Using the questions posed in the Discussion questions section (p. 636) write a response in the form of an essay.
What factors do you think contributed to how the people at AWB who were involved in the Iraq wheat trade behaved?
Identify the main stakeholders involved in this situation. What concerns might each stakeholder have had? Were any of the stakeholders concerns in conflict with each other?. Explain. What impact might this have had on AWB staff/
Using figure 5.5 analyse the intensity of the ethical dilemma facing AWB’s employees as they were pressured to sell wheat in the export market. How might other factors that affect ethical and unethical behaviour be involved? (See Figure 5.3)
Evaluate Andrew Lindberg’s ethical leadership. What recommendations would you have made to him?
What lessons do you think have been learned by leaders from the AWB saga?
Your response MUST include discussion from the following sources:
Botterill, L.C. 2007, ‘Doing it for the Growers in Iraq: The AWB Oil-for-Food and the Cole Inquiry’ , The Australian Journal of Public Administration, vol 66. No. 1, pp.4-12.
Botterill, L.C. and McNaughton, A. 2008, Laying the Foundations for the Wheat Scandal: UN Sanctions, Private Actors and the Cole Inquiry’, Australian Journal of Political Science, vol. 43, no 4, pp. 583-598.
Denton, D.K. 2010, Decent Leadership, International Journal of Learning and Change, vol 4. No. 4, pp.355-364.
Optional references – you DO NOT need to use these in your essay:
McShane, L and Cunningham, P 2012, ‘To Thine Own Self Be True? Employees’ Judgments of the Authenticity of Their Organisation’s Corporate Social Responsibility Program’, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 108, No. 1, pp. 81–100.
Robins, F 2008, ‘Why corporate social responsibility should be popularised but not imposed’, Corporate Governance, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 330-341. (Article provides a good background to the area of corporate social responsibility (even though supporting more the classical view than the socio-economic view.)
Mayer, DM, Aquino, K, Greenbaum, RL and Kuenzi, M 2012, 'Who Displays Ethical Leadership, and Why does it Matter? An Examination of Antecedents and Consequences of Ethical Leadership', Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 55, No. 1, pp. 151–171. (Article considers the issue of social learning in terms of interactions between leaders and followers.)
In addition to the required sources shown above, you should use AT LEAST TWO other references that you have found. A superior answer will also include some real world examples as part of the evidence that supports your claims and arguments. The format of this assessment item should follow a discussion essay format with a brief introduction, a body and a brief conclusion. For further help on how to write an essay, check the UWS Library pages.
You also need to support any claims that you make by using relevant research literature, concentrating on peer-reviewed or scholarly sources. Note that newspaper articles and Wikipedia are not considered scholarly sources due to issues about peer review of the material presented. However, you can use newspaper articles and Wikipedia to obtain a general understanding on a topic that you are researching. Where scholarly sources are used then appropriate citing and referencing of these sources should be completed as part of your submission.
Submission details, Due Date and Turnitin
Your assignment MUST be submitted online using this assignment template through the relevant Turnitin assignment drop box, in the Management Dynamics vUWS site, on or before 11:45PM Sunday of Week 6 (7 September 2014). Assignments submitted after this time may be subject to a late penalty. Under no circumstances will any UWS staff involved with the delivery of Management Dynamics or otherwise accept hard copy submissions.
The Turnitin drop box in the Management Dynamics vUWS site should be used for TEXT MATCHING PURPOSES AND ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION. Using the Turnitin drop box for text matching means that you wish to generate and inspect a Turnitin originality report which highlights pieces of text for which Turnitin has found a match. Where proper acknowledgement is in place you will not need to do anything; where proper acknowledgement is not in place you will need to make changes to your assignment. If you have made changes to your assignment you can re-submit it to Turnitin which will over-write the existing version of your assignment as well as generate another Turnitin originality report (note that there is a delay of up to 24-hours in getting an originality report for this second or any subsequent submission of your assignment). Students should aware that the percentage of matches in the originality report may be misleading due to matching of text in the template and so students should concentrate on the text matched in their own written work.
As soon as you are happy that no further changes are necessary to your assignment you will then need to submit the final version of your assignment to the Turnitin assignment drop box. THAT IS, IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY THAT A FINAL VERSION OF YOUR ASSIGNMENT IS UPLOADED ON OR BEFORE THE DUE DATE. UNDER NO CURCUMSTANCES WILL THE EXCUSE THAT THE WRONG DOCUMENT WAS UPLOADED BE ACCEPTED.
Length
1000 words (± 100 words). Given the short length of this assessment item you should aim to be clear and concise in your writing in order to adhere to the word limit. Avoid lengthy descriptions, particularly of any material presented in lectures, in your text or from other sources. Do not use direct quotations but rather paraphrase what is discussed in your sources. Note this word count does NOT include the words used to compile your ‘References’ section at the end of your submission. You can only achieve a high standard by writing drafts and editing – do not attempt to write this the night before it is due.
Format
Given the assessment asks for a response to specific questions, it is not strictly a discussion essay but you still need to follow the essay format for this assessment. As stated above, acknowledgement of any information sources must occur through using an in-text citation as well as a reference entry in the ‘References’ section at the end of the e...