5 – Corporate Responsibility

For this discussion forum, we are going to work on the Closing Case from Chapter 5. This is an interesting case study since it dives into the increasingly important topic of corporate responsibility on a global scale.

Below, you can see a summary of the case. You can find the full text of the case at the end of Chapter 5 in your book.

Additionally, I have added some extra material and videos to help you understand the issues better. It also helps those of you who might be interested in digging deeper into this topic.

As usual, after reading the case study carefully and watching the videos I have provided. Make sure to number your answers accordingly and don’t leave any questions unanswered:

Summary of case

The opening case explores corporate social responsibility at Woolworths Group. The Australian conglomerate has set 2020 as the deadline to achieve goals across three areas that comprise its Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy 2020. Woolworths believes that it needs to be socially responsible across multiple areas within the framework of People, Planet, and Prosperity. Because the focus in each of these areas is unique, specialized strategic initiatives have been developed for each focus. The focus on People is about encouraging diversity, Planet focuses on the environment, and Prosperity focuses on trusted relationships.

Please make sure to read and study the full case in Chapter 5 of our textbook.

In addition:  Here are couple of links and videos that are very informative about this topic:

Website: Woolworth Group’s Corporate Governance and Code of Conduct site:

https___www.woolworthsgroup.com.au_page_about-us_our-approach_corporate-governance_ 

Video:     What is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)?

https___youtu.be_E0NkGtNU_9w 

Questions:

1. What challenges do you think a company like Woolworths Group is facing when developing and implementing a company-wide corporate social responsibility strategy that takes into account the more than 200,000 employees, diverse interests, and stakeholders? 

2. Woolworths Group is trying to reduce its carbon emissions or footprint by 10 percent. Based on where we are as a world, is 10 percent enough of a reduction? Perhaps global warming is not real, albeit the vast majority of scientists clearly suggest it is; what do you think?

3. Woolworths Group is obviously not the only conglomerate that is working on Corporate Social Responsibility issues. Name at least one more company that is working on this topic. What efforts or goals are they setting in this regard? Write a brief paragraph on your findings.

 300 words minimum (total)