Major Project
Introduction
This is the major project for this course.
Congratulations on all your hard work that has brought you to this major project for course completion. This project requires reflection on the journalling activities and online discussions that you completed throughout the course.
The following questions relate to the course goals and learning outcomes for each module. They will guide your reflection. If you were attentive to the module activities, this project will be less time consuming than it will be if you weren’t. It requires reflection and commentary on key learning objectives as they relate to the activities. This major project is worth 40% of the final course grade.
Instructions
Read all of the following 10 questions in Parts A, B, and C before beginning this project. Use the questions to reflect on the activities you completed in Modules 1 to 4, as well as discussion activities in which you participated.
Write a paper addressing the following questions and reflections. The paper should be no more than 20 pages double-spaced, approximately 5000 words, and include examples from your journalling activities and discussion postings.
Part A: Stakeholders & Interrelationships
- 1. Describe how the activities influenced your awareness and understanding of the interrelationship between business and society. Use examples from your activities in each of the modules and include evidence from your online discussion postings to support this answer. (10 marks)
- 2. Using examples from your activities, describe the challenges of dealing with the conflicts and/or confluence of stakeholder needs, wants, expectations, and perspectives. Identify whose perspective you are representing in each of your examples. List examples of some of the ramifications of ignoring or improperly addressing stakeholder interests. (10 marks)
- 3. Comment on how the use of ”circles of reflection” can affect your perspective of an issue or situation. Cite examples from your activities to demonstrate how use of the circles of reflection affected your analysis. (5 marks)
Part B: Forces & Influences
- 4. Comment on how ethics and social responsibility relate to some of the internal and external forces in business and society that we discussed in this course. Review activities in Modules 3 and 4, as well as Module 2 for examples. (10 marks)
- 5. Describe how the readings and journalling activities influenced your views on workplace ethics and corporate social responsibility. Did you have a shift in your perspective? Do you consider ethics and/or corporate social responsibility to be important to business and society today? Explain your answer, and use examples from the activities. (10 marks)
- 6. Comment on the interrelationship between external forces such as globalization, economics, technology and the environment, and internal influences on business and society including governance and corporate citizenship (CSR), consumer protection, employee rights and responsibilities, and workplace diversity. Remember to support your argument with multiple examples such as sample journal entries, postings from online discussions, or readings. (20 marks)
- 7. Is the government an external force, an internal force, a stakeholder, or all of the above? Using examples from your activities, comment on the government’s role in business and society. (5 marks)
Part C: Final Reflection
- 8. Comment on how journalling activities helped you recognize the real or potential impact of stakeholder biases as well as your own biases. How do biases or differing perspectives influence the media, public opinion, and decision-making in business and society? Use examples from your activities to support your commentary. (15 marks)
- 9. Did participating in the online discussions make you more aware of your views and other people’s views about the course topics? Explain your answer. (5 marks)
- 10. Describe what was the most significant learning for you in this course and explain why. (10 marks).
