TASK
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1. Choose an Australian company that is publicly listed and operates in two or more countries. Write a introductory background on your chosen company. Critically examine their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) objectives, discuss how effectively their strategic plan communicates the CSR objectives and whether in practice these objectives are/not likely to be achieved - justify your reasoning.
Obtain annual report/strategic planning/sustainability documentation for the publicly listed company from their websites or other sources from which you should be able to acquire sufficient information to ascertain their CSR objectives, what they have implemented to achieve these etc. Though you will need to use other literature sources to fully verify if their CSR objectives are/not likely to be achieved.
2. For your selected company (above) choose one of the targeted countries listed below to do business. Provide a brief background and justification for choosing overseas country. Conduct an analysis of the macro environment (i.e. the economic, political, legal and socio-cultural environment) of that country. Compare your analysis of your chosen country against Australia. Use the analysis to highlight the relevant issues and managerial implications that your chosen organisation would need to be aware of to -do business- in this other country.
For your chosen company you need to select one country to do business with but it must not be a country that your company currently holds operations within that country.
Targeted countries to choose from are: Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, South Korea, Spain, United Kingdom, United States of America, Russia. These countries chosen (in addition to Australia) represent major economies in the world at this time.
Students may choose to conduct this analysis on their current workplace organisation.
Your assessment report should be in a report style format (i.e. a format that would be expected in an authentic workplace situation) and should also include the structure outlined in the -Presentation- section in the subject outline for this assessment.
Note: You need to ensure that you refer to the theory covered in Modules 1 to 3 within your report and find additional relevant literature/information sources. This should not be a general descriptive report, instead it must be a report that explains the relevant theory relating to international management and provides data/reported facts as the basis of an evaluation of the international environment for the company chosen. Thus, when providing data/reported facts on factors such as type of government or economic aspects you should not just state the information but you should also explain how it is significant and why it is of interest/importance to your particular company.
RATIONALE
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This assessment task will assess the following learning outcome/s:
• be able to evaluate the implications for managing teams and businesses in a globalised world.
• be able to research the political, legal and economic environment of a country and analyse managerial implications for leading teams and operating a business.
• be able to evaluate the main theories, concepts and models of culture and use these theories to make recommendations regarding management of cross-cultural communication, negotiation and conflict resolution in a multi-cultural team environment.
• be able to identify the ethical and corporate social responsibility issues managers may face when operating internationally and develop a strategic response to these issues.
This assessment has been designed in order to:
• assist you to develop and demonstrate your learning about the nature of international management and the importance of macro-environmental scanning and research, focusing on Modules 1 - 3;
• allow you to develop your information searching and critical thinking skills;
• encourage independent research into the ethical, CSR and cross-cultural management issues of doing business in a particular country: and
• provide you with experience in producing an authentic, well researched report.