Success Through Business Ethics – Ethical Analysis of an FMCG Brand
This assessment is an individual written report for the Success Through Business Ethics module. The assignment requires students to critically examine ethical issues and challenges within a Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) brand and evaluate how ethical theories, decision-making approaches and leadership practices can be applied to understand unethical business behaviour. The report has a total word limit of 2,500 words and accounts for 100% of the assessment. Students are required to select an FMCG brand that has been involved in unethical practices between 2000 and 2025. The selected brand may originate or operate anywhere in the world and may still be operating or may have ceased operations. Students must ensure that sufficient information is available about the organisation and its external environment before selecting the company. The report begins with an introduction explaining the nature of business ethics and introducing the selected FMCG brand and the unethical business practices associated with it. The main analysis requires students to select three normative ethical theories, explain their key principles and critically evaluate whether the company's behaviour adhered to or violated those principles. Students must use this analysis to explain why the identified business practices can be considered unethical. A second analytical section requires students to choose either ethical decision-making or social accounting. The selected concept must be explained and then critically applied to the unethical practices of the chosen FMCG brand. A further analysis focuses on the leadership style of the company's leadership team. Students must explain the principles of the leadership style, consider its positive and negative aspects, and analyse how the leaders responded to the unethical business practices. The report concludes by summarising the key findings from the analysis and providing two important recommendations for the selected brand. The recommendations should be directly relevant to the unethical practices identified and should be justified using evidence and findings from the report. Where a selected company has ceased operating, recommendations should still be provided on the assumption that the brand is operating. The assessment develops students' ability to apply ethical frameworks to business decision-making, understand ethical decision-making and corporate social responsibility, align ethics and values with business contexts, analyse ethical challenges in business strategies and operations, and evaluate moral dilemmas using economic, legal and ethical considerations. The report must use Harvard referencing for in-text citations and the reference list, with the reference list organised alphabetically.
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