How Ethical are Major Internet Companies?

AssessmentTask

Formative Submission 1

Task:  Research and Write a Business Report that Addresses the Question:

‘How Ethical are Major Internet Companies?’

Methodology:

Write a Business report with the following report headings and content:

  • ‘Introduction’
    • Briefly describe that you are going to report on the ethical standards and actions of the following major internet companies:
      • Google
      • Microsoft
      • Apple
      • Facebook
    • You will do this by conducting a short survey, locating and summarizing the company’s Ethical and/or Code of Conduct policies, comparing their ethical policies with their actions, and drawing some conclusions about their ethical behaviour.
  • ‘What do People Think?’
    • Survey 10 people and ask: How ethical do you think each of the following companies is?
    • Rate the answers from 1-10 (totally unethical to completely ethical)
    • Report the average result for each company in a table
    • Report your own initial ethical rating of the same companies
  • ‘Ethical/Code of Conduct Policies’
    • Locate the ethical policy/code of conduct for each company
    • Suggestion: Search <company name> ethics policy or code of conduct
    • Write a brief summary of the policy
    • Briefly describe how each compare to the policy statements of the others? Longest/shortest, easiest to read/full of air, strongest stand/weakest, etc.
  • ‘Ethical Behaviour’
    • Locate and briefly describe any reports of unethical conduct by the companies (maximum 3).
    • Suggestion: Search <company name> unethical
    • Do these reports match the companies’ policies?
  • ‘Australian Tax’
    • Locate reports of the tax paid in Australia by the companies
    • Do these companies pay a fair share of tax in Australia?
  • ‘Summary’
    • Are the companies as ethical as they claim?
    • Are some companies better than others?
    • Do you have any recommendations for better ethical behaviour?
    • Having done the research, what is you final ethical rating for the companies

 Format:

  • A4 Sized pages
  • Printed on one side
  • 54 (1’) Margins all around
  • Times New Roman or Calibri font
  • Major Headings 14pt Bold, Minor Headings 12pt Bold, body text 12pt
  • Spell checked, correct English usage
  • A blank line between paragraphs
  • File in PDF format
  • Length: Are you going to ask your boss how many words to write in a report???

 Do Not:

  • Do not use academic referencing. A business report does not use referencing.
  • To indicate where the information in your report comes from, use URLs (internet address) in the text E.G.

https://sites.google.com/a/email.vccs.edu/bus100mlmuseappleinc/home/apple-inc-code-of-conduct

  • This is an individual assignment – do not commit plagiarism!
    • Copy from some other student
    • Copy from the internet (You may quote and paraphrase, but don’t copy great slabs of text)
    • Pay someone else to write your report (I may ask for copies of you draft work)
  • Anti-plagiarism software such as Turn-It-In will be used

Due:

  • 55pm, Sunday 15th, September 2019
  • A Moodle submission folder will be provided