Case Study Assignment -
CASE STUDY - THE ETHICS OF PROFIT IN THE AUSTRALIAN RETAIL INDUSTRY
Questions for Ethics Case Study - After reading the above case, please answer the following questions:
1. The Food and Grocery Code of Conduct which provides guidelines to the Australian supermarket industry has a requirement that "retailers and wholesalers act lawfully and in good faith". What do you think is meant by the term "good faith"?
2. Why do you think the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct is a "voluntary" code? Why hasn't the ACCC moved to have government legislate this code into law?
3. Strategic theory suggests that having power is a good thing. Generally, it is thought that having power is better than being powerless. For example, pricing and purchasing power brings bottom-line benefits. But when is it appropriate to use the power you have? How do you assess if the use of your decision making power as a senior manager and/or group is legitimate?
4. If you are the Chief Financial Officer and you are approached by the CEO or other senior manager to deliberately delay the payment to the supplier simply to improve your company's cash position, how would respond? On what grounds would you base this response?
5. To what extent do you believe that you can apply developed country standards of employment conditions to less developed countries? What information and/or frameworks can you use to determine what is appropriate?
6. The case says (p4) that an OxFam Australia survey suggests that Australian consumers are willing to pay more garments if this means that less developed country suppliers are also paid more. If you felt strongly about this and you were on the senior management team discussing this idea, how would you convince a CEO or Chief Marketing Officer that this is a good thing if the company's strategy follows a cost (price) leadership model?
7. The case states (p4) that even where retailers try to do the right thing and conduct audits on their suppliers, "audit fraud" is a problem - workers being coached to say the right things even to independent auditors. If you were conducting the audit how would you approach this possible problem particularly given that the employees and management you are auditing may be in fear of losing their jobs if they are truthful?
8. What is Integrated Reporting and what is it trying to achieve? How do you think the use of this framework may change performance and remuneration system design?
9. What do you understand by the concept of an "at risk" component of remuneration? Why do think it appears to be a larger component of total remuneration for CEOs and senior management the bigger the company as found by the Productivity Commission report?
10. What is your understanding of who the stakeholders of a company are? Who do you think are the stakeholders of a large supermarket company? Why is the concept important to ideas concerning the ethical behaviour of companies?
Your Case Report MUST include the following FIVE sections:
Section 1: Abstract - this opening section briefly describes the case, your analyses, the approach you used to respond the case questions, research you undertook to study additional material/resources to analyse/respond case questions, reflect on the NEW skills and knowledge you have learned from this case. Please note that this is NOT an executive summary - write this section as your "self-reflection" in your (own) words. This section should not exceed 300 words.
Section 2: Introduction - in this section: (i) provide the overall summary for the case and background information about the industry described in the case; (ii) describe the environment/context of the case organisations/industry, major players, its accounting & auditing practices, its corporate governance & culture, and ethical foundations within the industry; (iii) describe the specific issues/challenges you identified which arose within the industry described in the case. You may include tables, figures, sidebars, charts and graphs to highlight key points.This section should not exceed 500 words.
Section 3: Responses to the Case Questions - this section is heart of your submission document. In this section provide response to each question (discretely). These questions will be uploaded on iLearn by the Unit Convener in week 6 of the session. In each question you are required to construct an argument about various situations and critically analyse the role of an accounting professional in those situations. Do NOT simply describe the situation or case or merely repeat information from Section 2. Limit descriptions to the Introduction Section. Specific details will vary according to the case question being analysed and the information necessary to support your argument. It is expected that you will undertake some research to construct and support your arguments. This section should not exceed 1850 words.
Section 4: Conclusion - provide overall conclusion of the case in this section. Conclude this section by evaluating the impact of the issues/challenges highlighted in the case (both positive and negative), discuss lessons learned from the case, and the steps to be taken to avoid issues/challenges as faced by other similar organisations. This section should not exceed 350 words.
Section 5: References - provide a list of additional resources/material (ie journals, websites, books etc) you used to write case analysis and responses to the question. Your case analysis may also be supported by material presented by the industry partners (if any) and academic and industry sources. Limit your list to a maximum of 10 references. There is no word limit for this section.
Attachment:- Assignment Files.rar