Corporate Responsibility
INTRODUCTION: As a leader in your organization, it is vital that you are familiar with the laws that regulate your industry. Sparked by the dramatic corporate and accounting scandals of Enron, Arthur Andersen, Adelphia, and WorldCom, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was implemented in 2002 in an effort to restore confidence in the stock markets. Sarbanes-Oxley represents the most important securities legislation since the original federal securities laws of the 1930s as it increased governmental regulation and oversight of publicly traded companies and established protections for whistleblowers. The False Claims Act and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act provide a financial incentive for those who blow the whistle to report fraudulent activity within their organization. In this task, you will select and analyze an established companys code of ethics, analyze how an employee would raise an ethical concern within an organization, and consider current laws with respect to whistle-blowers. SCENARIO: You are a business manager of Paradigm Toys, a publicly held company that is a retailer and manufacturer of childrens toys. The board of directors has asked you to conduct an ethics audit of the company and report to the board if you find the need for ethics training. REQUIREMENTS: Prepare a report (suggested length of 68 pages) for Paradigm Toys in which you do the following: A. Discuss the purpose of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in an organization. 1. Identify two primary and two secondary stakeholders that influence Paradigm Toys. 2. Analyze two ways that Paradigm Toys should meet their CSR for the primary and secondary stakeholders identified in part A1. B. Reflect on the importance of ethical leadership by doing the following: 1. Explain why it is important for an organization to develop an ethical culture. a. Discuss the role that Paradigm Toys leadership can play in fostering an ethical culture. 2. Explain the purpose of an ethics audit. a. Discuss the value that an ethics audit could bring to Paradigm Toys. C. Develop the ethical framework that you would use if you were faced with an ethical dilemma by doing the following: 1. Identify and analyze an ethical dilemma in a business setting. Note: You may also choose an ethical dilemma you have witnessed at your current place of employment. 2. Evaluate two potential solutions to the ethical dilemma identified in part C1. 3. Explain which solution from part C2 you would recommend and why that solution would be the more ethical choice. D. Create a proposal for implementing an ethics training program at Paradigm Toys by doing the following: 1. Identify three key topics that you would cover in your ethics training program. a. Explain why you would include the three topics from part D1 in your training program. 2. Recommend a delivery method that you believe would be most effective for the training program. a. Justify why the delivery method recommended in part D2 would be most effective for the training program. E. Acknowledge sources, using in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized. F. Demonstrate professional communication in the content and presentation of your submission. File Restrictions File name may contain only letters, numbers, spaces, and these symbols: ! – _ . * ‘ ( ) File size limit: 200 MB File types allowed: doc, docx, rtf, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, odt, pdf, txt, qt, mov, mpg, avi, mp3, wav, mp4, wma, flv, asf, mpeg, wmv, m4v, svg, tif, tiff, jpeg, jpg, gif, png, zip, rar, tar, 7z