Prepare an essay of up to 3500 words by answering ONE question from the list below.
- Reflecting on the many different attempts to define Corporate Social Responsibility, assess the claim that without a uniform definition setting the parameters for responsible business behaviour, companies will continue to get away with claiming to be socially responsible while altering none of their practices.
- 'The human face that CSR applies to capitalism goes on each morning, get increasingly smeared by day and washes off at night' Clive Crook (Burchell 2007;266). To what extent is Crook's scepticism around the value of CSR justified?
- Examining the work of at least two theorists that you have studied, what explanations have been given for the increasing focus by campaign groups upon the ethical and environmental actions of large multinationals. Evaluate with examples whether they have any effect on corporate practice.
- Corporations are internationalising but the rules and regulations that are designed to control their activities are not. As a consequence, both governments and civil society now lack any effective means of moderating their behaviour. Discuss.
- The environmental challenges which businesses are increasingly facing means that many of their approaches to CSR will be inadequate to support the continuity of their operations. Critically discuss this statement with reference to two particular environmental challenges, theory and corporate examples.
- Drawing from a recent business scandal, which is better to inform managerial decision making - deontological ethics, consequentialism, or an alternative ethical theory?
- Using relevant examples and theories, compare and contrast the difference between ‘fair trade’, ‘free trade’, and ‘ethical consumption’ - also discuss which of these is best suited to stimulate a prosperous society.
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