Select a civil society organisation (CSO) that is primarily directing its activities to an ethics or sustainability issue and that has either sought to change corporate behaviour or sought to involve business in fixing the issue (such as Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, Red Cross/Red Crescent).
Write a report that:
summarises the extent to which the CSO’s strategy has evolved over time
identifies specific examples of its interactions with business
evaluates the strategy and tactics used in working with and/or against business
makes recommendations about how the CSO might improve or strengthen its strategy
contains a brief summary and conclusion
contains appendices in support.
Key assumptions
The chosen CSO needs to have a history of working with business (which may or may not include partnering with business) or clear opposition to certain business behaviour.
The CSO needs to have enough public information to enable you to meaningfully demonstrate your research (and allow the marker to do the same). It also needs to NOT have been analysed to the extent that it will be difficult to show your own analysis.
Ideally, you will be able to identify a change of strategy by the CSO, so that you can analyse a previous strategy, the reasons for the change and the effect of a new strategy. Note that you may be able to identify various strategies by the same CSO depending on their approach to a particular business organisation.
In identifying the strategy of the CSO, you will need to identify relevant stakeholders who are concerned about the same issue and identify their interest.
The organisation selected can only be a not-for-profit enterprise (e.g. a public sector organisation or a charity) and CANNOT be a profit-making enterprise nor a government agency.
You can use a wide variety of perspectives on stakeholders and stakeholder theory and practice, and you can draw on ethics and sustainability where relevant.
Recommendations need to be practicable and implementable, either at the time of management’s decision or going forward.
If you are using detailed data (statistics, and material that defines or explains the meanings of terms used in the report, etc) to support your discussions in the main body of the assignment, these should be put in appendices.
Failure to use Appendices to provide relevant background and other information, workings and analysis will result in a reduced mark and may result in a fail grade.
The Assignment should contain a reference list, however there should not be a bibliography, meaning that there should not be any references in the reference list not used in the Assignment.
Diagrams, footnotes, tables and references will not be included in the word count. Diagrams, footnotes and tables will only be given a reward (in the marking process) if the text of the Assignment refers to them.
Show your workings and your evaluation, including critical analysis, and also a wider appreciation of alternative perspectives.
Improvement by connecting each section (synthesis) and ensuring alignment would help.
# Complexity
Show critical thinking and understanding of industry practice. Don’t spend too long describing the reporting ‘standards’ – that isn’t required
