Sustainable Business and Levels of Strategy Paper Read the instructions carefully and answer the questions.In-text referencing is required. Case Study Task
Task overview
For this assessment activity, you need to answer TWO questions as shown below – one
question for EACH case; that is, you must answer the questions posed for BOTH of the cases.
These two questions are designed to help you apply content from the whole course to a
critique of real-world cases from a business ethics and values perspective, and to also
consider the important lessons you can take from the case assessment that important to you
in your own professional life.
Both answers should be placed in a single document and submitted via the link on the course
site. Your submission only needs to include the answers to the two questions (including
references).
In-text referencing is required
Word count: 600-700 words for each question (word count excludes referencing): the overall
word count will then be 1200-1400 words covering both questions for the 2 cases. You must
however do 600-700 words for each question.
It is important to keep within the required word count. When marking is done, only work up
to word count limit for each question will be taken into consideration. Anything over the
word count limit will be ignored.
Q1
Interface case – sustainable business and levels of strategy
Purpose of this assessment task:
It’s fine to learn about ethical and sustainable business in the classroom, but what happens
when you get out there in the business world? Can the things we cover in the course be
successfully applied in the real-world?
The Interface case is an example of a firm that is managing to do this, and provides many
lessons for us all in how we can make a positive impact in the world.
This question is designed to help you delve further into the case and identify important
lessons you can take with you into your professional life.
Must do activities:
•
•
•
•
Read the slides given for this case
Watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2LOUBme8rw
Explore the Interface Global web site https://www.interface.com/APAC/enAU/homepage?r=1
Choose the United States location (Interface is based in the USA)
Sections of particular importance to review are ‘About’ and ‘Sustainability’
Read all of these articles (note: these articles provide a historic development
perspective of Interface’s sustainability journey):
https://www.fastcompany.com/33906/sustainable-growth-interface-inc
https://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2014/03/17/interface-europe-sustainabilityengineering-innovation
https://www.greenbiz.com/article/inside-interfaces-bold-new-mission-achieve-climatetake-back
Question to answer:
Answer this question and submit your answer as set out in the instructions for this
assessment task:
(Word count: 600-700 words)
This question has two parts: answer both parts:
(a) Using the Interface case covered in the course, content from the Interface web site, and
information gained from your own research, identify ways in which Interface is addressing
sustainable business initiatives at all four levels of strategy.
(b) Discuss the key lessons from doing this activity that you can take into your professional
life.
Q2
Freedom Insurance case – sales tactics, and how to build an ethical organisation
Purpose of this assessment task:
We cover a lot of ground in this course – looking at fundamental ethical principles, working
through cases (good and bad!), thinking about how to apply ethical and sustainable business
concepts in the organisational setting.
How though do you go about the process of building an ethical organisation?
If your boss came and said “you’ve done a university course on business ethics haven’t you?
So tell me, how do we make our organisation an ethical one?”, could you say “I can help with
that! I have a diagnostics and action tool we can use and get started on right away!”
This is what the course topic on Building an Ethical Organisation seeks to empower you with.
This question is designed to help you think this through further: how to build an ethical
organisation, by looking at a real-world case – Freedom Insurance.
Must do activities:
•
•
•
•
•
Read the slides given for this case
Note that Freedom Insurance ceased trading after the problems set out in this case
study came to light.
Read the case documents:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/sep/11/clearview-life-insurancestaff-trained-in-tactics-that-broke-law-banking-inquiry-told
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-24/inside-ultra-competitive-sales-culture-atfreedom-insurance/10299480
Question to answer
Answer this question and submit your answer as set out in the instructions for this
assessment task:
(Word count: 600-700 words)
This question has two parts: answer both parts:
(a) Consider the Freedom Insurance case.
(i) Using Kant’s categorical imperatives, assess whether selling insurance to Grant
Stewart’s son was ethical or not.
(ii) Using the course content on Building an Ethical Organisation, set out the key things
Freedom should do to address the problems raised in the article.
(b) Discuss the key lessons you can take from doing this activity that you can take into your
professional life.
INTERFACE:
SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS AND
LEVELS OF STRATEGY
INTERFACE: LEVELS OF STRATEGY
The question:
This question has two parts: answer both parts:
(a) Using the Interface case covered in the course, content
from the Interface web site, and information gained from your
own research, identify ways in which Interface is addressing
sustainable business initiatives at all four levels of strategy.
(b) Discuss the key lessons from doing this activity that you
can take into your professional life.
INTERFACE: LEVELS OF STRATEGY
What is the purpose of this activity?
This activity is designed to help you develop your skills in how
to go about implementing sustainable business practices
through all levels of organisational strategy by looking at how
Interface is doing this.
INTERFACE: LEVELS OF STRATEGY
How do you go about doing this activity?
The course content you will need is:
• Levels of Strategy and, in particular, the Levels of Strategy
worksheet.
• The Interface case documents (video, web link, press
articles)
INTERFACE: LEVELS OF STRATEGY
How do you go about answering this question? (cont )
Review the Interface case documents and map how Interface
is addressing sustainable business practices at each strategy
level.
Be specific – take information directly from the case
documents.
Show a reference for each point you make so it is clear where
you got the evidence from.
You don’t need to write an essay. Just set out the 4 levels of
strategy and the sub-headings under each, and list the
evidence in bullet-point of short sentence form
INTERFACE: LEVELS OF STRATEGY
Corporate strategy
The Levels of Strategy
Has to do with the business lines an organisation should participate in to meet its enterprise strategy
goals.
Decisions made at this level include:
Enterprise strategy:
Has to do with an organisation’s purpose for existing.
Decisions made at this level deal with the role an organisation plays in society and the parties for
whose benefit the organisation exists.
Evident at this strategy level are statements of an organisation’s vision, mission, and values.
•
Business portfolio makeup: the businesses the organisation should be in, and how it enters and
exits those businesses (such as a new start-up, merger, acquisition, alliance etc).
•
How diversified the organisation should be and how it can maximise value from its
diversification activities.
•
•
The geographic regions in which it operates.
Financial structure: the debt-equity mix and how this structure is operationalised.
From an ethical and sustainable business perspective, we would expect to see an organisation addressing ethical and
sustainable business issues in the types of businesses it participates in.
From an ethical and sustainable business perspective, we would expect to see ethical and sustainable world principles
taking a prominent position in an organisation’s statement of purpose, and as a key element of it values, vision,
mission, and core objectives.
Some of the questions that need to be asked at this strategy level include:
These high level purpose claims need to translate into action, whereby ethical and sustainability principles frame an
organisation’s culture and are reflected in decision making throughout the other three levels of strategy
•
•
•
Normally the Board of Directors / Governing Body plays a key role in the formulation of enterprise strategy:
implementation is mostly delegated to the CEO.
Appropriate skills set are needed on the Board / Governing Body to allow it to effectively confront and deal with ethical
and sustainability issues.
Business strategy
Is concerned with how an organisation competes in its particular business areas (for a
diversified firm, it is concerned with how each business line competes in its market, or
for an organisation operating in only one market, how it competes in that market
space).
Decisions made at this level include which specific product lines to offer, market
development, product distribution, manufacturing systems design, R&D, staffing, and
finance.
Functional strategy
Deals with the maximising of resource productivity to support the achievement of an organisation’s
higher-level strategies.
Decisions at this level include operational procedures of, and coordination between, different functions
such as marketing and research; includes issues such as pricing, promotion, production
scheduling, stock control, and staff and labour policies.
From an ethical and sustainable business perspective, we would expect to find ethical/sustainability principles
embedded in each functional activity. Examples include:
•
From an ethical and sustainable business perspective: organizations need to focus on their actual
products/services to either make them more ethical/sustainable, or to develop new
products/services that satisfy ethical/sustainability criteria, and to seek opportunities to gain
market place advantage from ethical and sustainable business practices.
•
Of particular importance are the technologies used in manufacture and delivery, and the design
characteristics of the products/services themselves.
•
Use of Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) to assess the entire value chain to address ecological and social
wellbeing impacts is an important tool in assessing business strategy issues.
Should we initiate changes to improve the ethical qualities and sustainability of existing businesses or should
we exit unsustainable businesses?
Should we add new ethical/sustainable businesses to our portfolio and, if so, should we develop these
businesses or acquire them?
Should we establish strategic alliances to jointly build innovative businesses that focus on ethical/sustainable
product and service development?
Human resources:
Recruiting: building ethical and sustainable business competencies into recruitment criteria to build
organisational skill sets and to ensure the value base of employees matches the organisation’s ethical and
sustainable business focus.
Training: Ongoing training for all employees on ethical and sustainable business issues.
Appraisal: Including ethical and sustainable business objectives in employee performance appraisal.
Reward systems: Linking reward systems to criteria that embrace ethical and sustainable business objectives as
opposed to basing rewards only on financial results.
Marketing:
Marketing initiatives need to support the organisation’s ethical and sustainability objectives and honestly
promote the organisation’s products and services in ways consistent with this.
Finance and accounting:
Building sustainable business objectives into a firm’s management accounting systems plays a key role in
collecting this data and providing the output to management and to other parties including regulators and the
general public via a firm’s sustainability report
INTERFACE: LEVELS OF STRATEGY
Corporate strategy
Has to do with the business lines an organisation should participate
in to meet its enterprise strategy goals.
Decisions made at this level include:
•
Business portfolio makeup: the businesses the organisation
should be in, and how it enters and exits those businesses
(such as a new start-up, merger, acquisition, alliance etc).
•
How diversified the organisation should be and how it can
maximise value from its diversification activities.
•
The geographic regions in which it operates.
•
Financial structure: the debt-equity mix and how this structure
is operationalised.
From an ethical and sustainable business perspective, we would
expect to see an organisation addressing ethical and sustainable
business issues in the types of businesses it participates in.
Some of the questions that need to be asked at this strategy level
include:
•
•
•
Should we initiate changes to improve the ethical qualities and
sustainability of existing businesses or should we exit
unsustainable businesses?
Should we add new ethical/sustainable businesses to our
portfolio and, if so, should we develop these businesses or
acquire them?
Should we establish strategic alliances to jointly build innovative
businesses that focus on ethical/sustainable product and service
development?
INTERFACE: LEVELS OF STRATEGY
For part (b) of the question:
b) Discuss the key lessons from doing this activity that you
can take into your professional life.
This requires you to think about lessons that are important to you
professionally.
Think about this in terms of what has come from you looking into
part (a) of the question.
The lessons are specific to you so talk about what is of value
and of importance to you.
Discuss:
• What the lessons are
• Why they are important to you professionally (focus on this).
INTERFACE: LEVELS OF STRATEGY
To sum up:
Part (a)
• Work through the Interface case documents and map
Interface’s actions to each Level of Strategy
• Be specific and reference each point.
Part (b)
• Identify some key lessons of importance to you professionally
from what you have found in answering Part (a).
• Discuss:
What the lessons are
Why they are important to you professionally (focus on this).
Weighting:
• Part (a): about half to two-thirds of your answer
• Part (b): about one-third to half of your answer.
INTERFACE:
SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS AND
LEVELS OF STRATEGY
FREEDOM
BUILDING AN ETHICAL
ORGANISATION
FREEDOM
The question
This question has two parts: answer both parts:
(a) Consider the Freedom Insurance case.
(i) Using Kant’s categorical imperatives, assess whether selling
insurance to Grant Stewart’s son was ethical or not.
(ii) Using the course content on Building an Ethical
Organisation, set out the key things Freedom should do to
address the problems raised in the article.
(b) Discuss the key lessons you can take from doing this activity
that you can take into your professional life.
FREEDOM
What is the purpose of this question?
We cover a lot of ground in this course – looking at fundamental
ethical principles, working through cases (good and bad!),
thinking about how to apply ethical and sustainable business
concepts in the organisational setting.
How though do you go about the process of building an ethical
organisation?
If your boss came and said “you’ve done a university course on
business ethics haven’t you? So tell me, how do we make our
organisation an ethical one?”, could you say “I can help with
that! I have a diagnostics and action tool we can use and get
started on right away!”
This is what the course topic on Building an Ethical Organisation
seeks to empower you with.
This question is designed to help you think this through further:
how to build an ethical organisation, by looking at a real-world
case – FREEDOM.
FREEDOM
How do you go about answering this question?
Part (a)(i)
(a) Consider the Freedom Insurance case.
(i) Using Kant’s categorical imperatives, assess whether selling
insurance to Grant Stewart’s son was ethical or not.
To answer this part of the question, you need to use the
‘Building and Ethical Org’ content.
FREEDOM
Part (a)(ii)
(ii) Using the course content on Building an Ethical Organisation,
set out the key things Freedom should do to address the problems
raised in the article.
The information and course content you will need can be found
here:
• Course content on how to build an ethical organisation
• Johnson article ‘Building an Ethical Organisation’
• The Building an Ethical Organisation worksheet
To answer Part (a)(ii):
• You need to use the course material set out above to outline
the key things the organisation should adopt to address the
problems raised in the article.
• Focus on the key things that need to be done: what is needed
to get to the core of the problem.
• When doing this, your answer must be grounded in the course
material.
FREEDOM
For part (b) of the question:
(b) Discuss the key lessons you can take from doing this
activity that you can take into your professional life.
This requires you to think about lessons that are important to you
professionally.
Think about this in terms of what has come from you looking into
part (a) of the question.
The lessons are specific to you so talk about what is of value
and of importance to you.
Discuss:
• What the lessons are
• Why they are important to you professionally (focus on this).
FREEDOM
To sum up:
Part (a)
• Work through the FREEDOM case and cover the points the
questions asks by using the relevant course material.
Do not just describe what the case says – you need to
analyse the case content using the course material in order
to come to a conclusion.
Part (b)
• Identify some key lessons of importance to you professionally
from what you have found in answering Part (a).
• Discuss:
What the lessons are
Why they are important to you professionally (focus on this).
Weighting:
• Part (a): about half to two-thirds of your answer
• Part (b): about one-third to half of your answer.
FREEDOM
BUILDING AN ETHICAL
ORGANISATION
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