Length:

1000 words maximum (+/- 10%)
(exclusive of references, appendices etc.)

Learning objectives assessed:

CLO1: Integrate and apply contemporary Ethics & Governance issues in a business context

CLO6: Effectively communicate ethics and governance concepts and arguments in a logical manner

Retention of drafts:

Students are required to retain draft versions of their work as they develop their final submission and keep a file of all material that they collect and use to develop their assignments. These materials may be requested after submission as part of our regular integrity checking processes, or if we have reason to believe that the integrity of an assessment may be compromised. In these instances, we may advise students that we have concerns about the provenance of the material that has been submitted. Students may be asked to provide an ‘oral defence’ of their work, if concerns exist about the true authorship of the assessment. We may ask for a re-submission of a new assessment piece. 

We do not discourage discussions, but students who base their work on template assignments, e.g. from senior students, should take note that this may result in misconduct proceedings, that could lead to a failure of their assessment task, failure of the course, or even suspension.

Assessment declaration:

By submitting all work for this assessment you have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of the Assessment declaration (Links to an external site.).

Getting trained and immersed in ethics and governance scholarly literature can be challenging, that students of this important subject need to understand, that to become future ethical business leaders and contributors. The purpose of this assignment is to build up your ability to bridge normative theories and scholarly readings.

From each of these readings, identify whether each uses Deontology, Teleology or Virtue ethics, or a combination to justify their approach. While it may seem like a challenging reading task, please remember, the use of these given readings makes your assignment easier.

Assignment 1 Readings

1

Drašček, M., Rejc Buhovac, A. and Mesner Andolšek, D., 2021. Moral Pragmatism as a Bridge between Duty, Utility, and Virtue in Managers’ Ethical Decision-Making. Journal of Business Ethics, 172(4), pp.803-819.

2

Batten, J.A., Loncarski, I., Szilagyi, P.G., 2018, When Kamay Met Hill: Organisational Ethics in Practice. Journal of Business Ethics, 147, pp. 779–792. ** For this reading, students are to focus on page 785 onwards (Stylised Models on Linkages Between Ethical Norms, Rules and Regulation).

These two readings give you significant opportunities to demonstrate your understanding of ethics theories. For both of these readings, identify and critically discuss at least two underpinning ethics theories, that inform the authors’ approaches.

For each of the theories you choose to discuss, find at least one more reading that helps supports your definition of the theory, e.g. readings that substantiate definitions of normative theories (Kantian, Deontology, Utilitarianism), or non-normative  theories.

Avoid writing in dot-point form, construct your sentences in argumentative form. Practice this skill for Assignment 2 and 3 as well.

In your analysis, focus on aspects of the readings that demonstrate aspects of an underpinning ethics theory.

To assist, you may wish to consider:

Analytically, do you find one or more than one ethics perspective? If so, which are they and why?

• You could critically analyse the selected aspects or features of the paper against the ethics perspectives.
• Using appropriate in-text citations, you may indicate paragraphs of the papers that may sustain your justification, but you must not cut and paste verbatim, but learn to cite the paragraph and produce paraphrased analysis.
• Critically analyse the selected paragraph for normative or non-normative (including psychological) approach to study of ethics.