Organisation Studies, CSR and Leadership

Written assignment #1: Organisation Studies, CSR and LeadershipThis 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.  THAT IS, 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.AssessmentBecoming a corporate socially responsible (CSR) organisation is probably more an imperative today than what it was in the last decades of the previous century.  Although Robins (2008) considers that CSR has not been clearly defined or delineated and that the CSR has not been universally accepted by all corporations or organisations, decisions about corporate social responsibility are seen as important and most likely made by the organisations’ senior managers (Robbins, 2008, p. 335).  There is support for this top-down approach to implementing and managing CSR in the discussion by Chin, Hambrick and Treviño (2013) about the impact that conservative as compared to liberal CEOs have on their organisations’ CSR agenda.  It would appear that even when it is not their own idea these CEOs exert significant influence on the suggestions of others (such as to embrace CSR or not).  From another perspective, the study by Chin, Hambrick and Treviño (2013) also challenges the view that ‘one size fits all’ when considering the classical or neo-liberal view of the organisation.  CEOs identified as more liberal in their political ideology see CSR as a central part of their organisation’s business strategy, whereas conservative CEOs see CSR activities as more cosmetic and related to corporate image and reputation (Chin, Hambrick and Treviño, 2013, p. 222).  In addition, when looking at a company such as Yahoo7! (presented in the Week 3 lecture), it would appear that lower level staff are also actively involved in CSR activities as well and so may make their own contributions to CSR beyond their senior managers’ influences.  McShane and Cunningham (2012) further consider this issue of CSR and bottom up employee acceptance or participation in CSR activities rather than the process merely being top down (leaders’ views on CSR).  They also consider employees’ perceptions of their organisations’ CSR activities in terms of whether these activities are seen as ‘authentic’ or otherwise.  Within the context of this discussion, your response should focus on the following questions:Do you believe that the leadership group of an organisation can have a significant impact on how a CSR agenda and its related activities are developed and implemented?,In terms of the leadership theories discussed in lectures, are the comments by Chin, Bambrick and Treviño (2013) more aligned with the behavioural theories of leadership (i.e. the notion that leaders are ‘hard-wired’) than they are with contingency theories of leadership (i.e. the notion that leaders are flexible and adaptable)?Is it possible to talk about superficial (unauthentic) CSR as compared to embedded (authentic) CSR? Alternatively, do organisations either have or do not have CSR?  What arguments would support either of these views?What role do followers (in the sense of employees) have in developing and implementing CSR broadly or specifically, with respect to particular CSR activities, within an organisation? Is it a necessary and sufficient condition for leadership to be involved in developing CSR top-down (which may result in superficial CSR), but only a necessary condition in terms of developing embedded CSR (with the sufficient condition being bottom-up involvement and engagement of employees or followers)?Your response MUST include discussion for the following sources, viz.: Chin, MK, Hambrick, DC and Treviño, LK 2013, ‘Political Ideologies of CEOs: The Influence of Executives’ Values on Corporate Social Responsibility’, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 2, pp. 197–232. 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. Optional references – you DO NOT need to use these in your essay: 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, see the ‘College of Business Essay/Report Writing Guide’ which is available in the ‘Assessments’ folder on the Management Dynamics vUWS site. 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 Turnitinour 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 (8 September 2013).  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.Length1000 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.FormatGiven 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 essay for each source used.  For more information on formatting citations and reference entries go to ‘Referencing & Citation’ on the UWS Library Website by clicking on the following link: Presentation Make sure that you insert your assignment into this assignment template before uploading to the Turnitin assignment drop box.As you are adopting an essay format for this assessment, you should NOT use headings or sub-headings.Entries should be put into the footer where requested by this template.The font to be used for this assignment is either Arial or Times New Roman script, 12 point font size, 1.5 line spacing, and left justified.You also need to familiarise yourself with the Academic Misconduct Policy regarding plagiarism and collusion.