BUA5VED Further Guidance on Assessment Two: Ethics in Organisations
Assessment Two relates to the subject of ethics.
You need to produce an individual written assignment (total 2,500 words, 35 marks). Details of what is expected regarding Assessment Two are below.
You should look at the Marking Rubric so you understand the criteria that will be used to assess your work.
For questions and discussion about any aspect of this assessment, you should go to the Assessment Two Forum Q&A and post there.
Individual Written Assignment (Total 2,500 words, 35 marks)
The individual written assignment comprises three inter-related components.
2.1 Self-reflection (500 words, 5 marks)
2.2 Literature review (1,200 words, 20 marks)
2.3 Application exercise (800 words, 10 marks)
2.1 Self-reflection
Identify and discuss an ethical decision you have taken, or an ethical dilemma you have faced, in a workplace context. How is the decision or dilemma an ethical one? Discuss the ethical approach/-es that underpinned your decision or dilemma.
Begin by brainstorming ideas for this assignment and then narrow down the possibilities to one workplace decision or dilemma that has clear ethical elements. First, you should describe your decision or dilemma: Who are the main people involved? What is the setting (organisational, industrial, cultural)? What are the key pieces of contextual and background information you need to present to help others make sense of your decision or dilemma?
In this assignment component, you need to demonstrate your understanding of what morality and ethics mean with reference to your chosen decision/dilemma. So, how does your decision involve questions and judgments about right and wrong, good and bad? Is there a line you can draw in your chosen situation between ethics and law? Was a values conflict involved? Are there issues of the common good, utility, duties and rights, justice, fairness and equality, harm or negligence involved? Remember to define any key terms used. By considering the answers to these questions, you should be able to articulate how your decision or dilemma was an ethical one.
Next, think about what guided your decision or the dilemma? Here you need to reflect on the underpinnings of your approach to making your ethical decision. In this section, you must refer to and use at least one ethical concept or theory covered in the subject to discuss your approach. These concepts or theories could include: cognitive moral development (Which level and stage were you reasoning at?); utilitarianism (Were you trying to maximise utility for the greatest number of people?); Kantian ethics (Were you driven by duty? Was there a maxim involved?); justice as fairness (Were you honouring or violating somebody’s rights? Were there procedural or distributive justice issues involved?); virtue ethics (Was your decision based on a particular trait of your moral character?); feminist ethics (Was your decision located in an ethics based on abstract principles, or an ethics of care?). Remember to define any key terms used.
In discussing your approach/-es, you might like to reflect critically on the process and/or the outcome of your decision or the dilemma.
For this self-reflective exercise, you are encouraged to write in the first-person. That is to say, it is permissible for this exercise to write: “I have experienced the following …. This happened to me”. Typically, you would not use the first person to write an academic assignment.
2.2 Literature review
Drawing upon academic literature, synthesise and evaluate current understandings of either ethical leadership or whistle-blowing.
Pick the topic that you are more interested in: ethical leadership or whistle-blowing. Then you should conduct a literature search using the online library resources. Resources to develop your library search and information literacy skills have been provided for this subject in the assessment section of the LMS site.
You should identify academic literature, and specifically peer-reviewed academic journal articles, that provide an insight into current understandings of your chosen topic. What are the current debates in the literature on ethical leadership or whistle-blowing? What is the dominant understanding of your chosen topic? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these dominant understandings?
For this component, you should ensure that you draw upon 12-15 readings from the academic literature; a minimum of 9 of these readings must be peer-reviewed academic journal articles. You may draw on no more than 2 readings currently available through the reading list for this subject. You are partly being assessed on your research and information literacy skills, and in particular your ability to conduct a library search and to identify appropriate materials for this task.
You should not use the first person to write 2.2.
2.3 Application exercise
With reference to an organisation with which you are familiar, evaluate whether there are ethical issues that require attention and discuss how these might best be addressed.
The aim of this exercise is to get you to apply the knowledge you have gained through the subject, and in particular from your work for components 2.1 and 2.2, to your current or previous organisation. In addition to applying your new knowledge, you are also being tested on your ability to use academic research as a form of evidence notably for your discussion of how the ethical issues you have identified in your chosen organisation could be addressed.
For this component, you should ensure that you draw upon 8-10 readings from the academic literature; a minimum 6 of these readings must be peer-reviewed academic journal articles. You may draw on no more than 2 readings currently available through the reading list for this subject. You are partly being assessed on your research and information literacy skills, and in particular your ability to conduct a library search and to identify appropriate materials for this task. The academic readings will be of primary significance for responding to the second half of the question where you are to recommend steps to achieve and verify a successful implementation.
You should not use the first person to write 2.3.

Presentation & Submission Instructions
You should present your work in Times New Roman, 12-point and 1.5 line spacing. You should use the Harvard Referencing for both in-text referencing and to produce your references list. Use the library’s Harvard Academic Referencing Tool to produce your references list.
Remember that under the Harvard Referencing System, the references list does not contribute to your overall word count; nor do any in-text direct quotes from source material. If you wish to include Appendices, you can do this and these will not contribute to your overall word count. However, if the material in an appendix is important to your argument, it should be included in the main body of the text.
You should produce a title page for your assessment that includes: your name and student ID number; subject code (BUA5VED) and title; assessment number and title; final word count.
Before you submit your assignment, you should do a final spell-check and proof-read of your work to eliminate any typographical errors. One tip: check that all the direct quotations in your assignment have been attributed to an author, and given a date and a page number from the source text.
You should submit via LMS through Turnitin and a hard copy to the Student Services Assignment Return Boxes at your campus.