Project

Pretend you are a consultant hired by the CEO of that company to analyze and make recommendations on its past, present and future on subjects around Corporate Social Responsibility.  This includes, of course, all subsets of CSR (environment, ethics, technology – i.e., each of the chapters in the book).

1.  Analyze The Industry.  

· What are the biggest CSR issues for this industry?  

· How are companies in this industry trying to address such issues?  

· How successful are they at addressing the CSR issues?    

2.  Analyze The Company you've chosen within that industry.  

· How is that company doing with CSR?  

· What exactly are the CSR issues it (and the industry) need to deal with?

3.  Recommendations.  THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE PRESENTATION/PROJECT. Make detailed recommendations on what you think both this company and the industry as a whole should do on each of the CSR issues you raise.  Be thoughtful, original and detailed. Specifically, 

· What should the goals of the a) company and b) industry be with regards to CSR?  (these goals must be realistic -- financially, and otherwise.  Remember both the professor and the company's Board – i.e., your fellow students -- will be evaluating your proposal on such issues).  In the past, how did the company look at such issues and in the future, according to your recommendations, how should the company address them differently?  

· You can organize your recommendations similar to the way a business plan is organized – i.e., around the following: 

· Mission Statement (what was it vs. what should it be going forward)

· Strategy (to make the Mission Statement a reality)

· Products (what were they vs. what should they be going forward?)

· Marketing (how will you market this new message?) 

· Organization (does the structure of the company need to change?  Different positions needed/eliminated?) 

· Financials (for the Board to approve your recommendation the ideas must make financial sense.  Please give details on projected expenses and revenue, roughly).   

· How will they realistically accomplish these goals?

· What is your reasoning behind your recommendations?  Do you have facts, or evidence from anywhere, that your recommendations might work? 

· How will customers, government and any other important stakeholders react to these changes?   What is the definition of "success" for each of these stakeholder groups? 

· What will the results be -- reputation-wise, financially, product-wise, etc?  

Presentation in Front of “Board” + Written Memo Presented to “CEO:”

1.  You will both present to the "Board" – i.e., your classmates.  The oral presentation should be considered the executive summary of your longer, written presentation (see below).  If it makes your presentation better and easier to understand it is recommended that you use slides (PPT or Prezi).  You need to summarize your presentation in 4:00 minutes (this time limit is strict.  You will be cut off at the 4:00 minute mark). The Board/your classmates will be "grading" you on the following topics and will be incorporated into the professor's evaluation for your project grade:  

· Clarity and organization of presentation (includes whether or not you finished your presentation in the allotted 4 minutes) -- worth 10% of the "Board's" grade

· Exhibit a strong is your understanding of the industry and company -- 10% 

· Presentation skills (i.e., confidence, verbal skills, eye contact, presence, body language, synchronization with slides, etc.) -- 10% 

· Integration of class concepts into your presentation. You do not have to be extremely literal and use, verbatim, the phrases we used BUT you need to show that you can take away the class concepts/themes and use them, generally. (note: anyone off the street can do a project like this but you need to display learnings from the semester in the project/presentation) – 30%

· How strong are your recommendations (i.e., backed up by strong argument? realistic? good and original ideas?) -- 40% 

The Board/your classmates -- will be allowed to ask one short question of you upon your completion of the 4 minute presentation.  (They will submit questions via a Twitter hashtag and professor may choose the question or will just let your classmates ask the question out loud…depending on time). You will have 1 minute to answer the question.  

2.  You will also write up a 6-10 page memo, single-spaced, to submit to the CEO of the company after your oral presentation.  Again, the oral presentation should be considered the Executive Summary of your longer, written presentation. 

3. Attribution – I don’t care what style of attribution you use, just as long as you attribute appropriately and accurately.

Please Don't Forget the Following Points (i.e., if you incorporate them your grade will be better):   

· Incorporate concepts, terminology and frameworks that we've been using into both your oral presentation and written memo.

· Organize the written memo well.  Specifically, 

· Don't make the reader have to work too hard to find your points.  For example, use headers for paragraphs when you are starting a new subject/topic. Assume the reader (i.e., the CEO who hired you) doesn't have a lot of time to read up on subjects or read consultants' memos.  As a result, you need to be crystal clear, concise and organized in your ideas and writing.  The CEO should be able to skim your document and understand your main points very easily.

· Think rigorously through the pros/cons of every issue.  Remember, if there is a pro/positive to one of your ideas, there is also probably a con/negative.  Don't neglect showing that you understand both sides.  The CEO has hired you to do thorough, thoughtful, research and come back to him/her with a useful, well-organized, well thought-out information that has a plan-of-action that can be realistically implemented.  

· Even though you have presented both sides, you still need to make a strong recommendation one way or another in the end.

I would like to know what company you are going to analyze so that there is not too much duplication in the class.

Footnotes -- I should have included this in the directions: 

“In APA-style footnotes, the last and first name of the author appear at the beginning, followed by the article title or website in italics. It is optional to add the date, in brackets or parentheses, on which the information was retrieved. The website address, if appropriate, must be placed at the end of the footnote.