MGMT 30008 (S2 2021) - Assignment 2 Task

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1 MGMT 30008 Managing Sustainably Semester 2 2021 Group Assignment Instructions You are a group of consultants who are tasked to work with an organisation to identify the relevant current and future sustainability issues that the organisation is experiencing. As a group, you then need to develop a sustainability action plan to tackle these issues. The group report consists of four (4) phases which are detailed below: Phase 1: Background (10%) Provide some relevant information about the organisation that you will be examining. Your organisation can be any size (small, medium, or large). It can be the local café, a furniture store, an online recruiter, a start-up, a mining company, etc. The organisation does not have to be located in Melbourne (or your city) and you can choose a company based anywhere. The only condition is that you can contact/get access/speak to the owner/manager about the relevant sustainability issues that affect the organisation. Give a brief history of the company including the owner/manager, the number of employees the firm has, any available financial information, the industry in which the organisation operates, the location of the company, its competitors, etc. Phase 2: Research (40%) Internal analysis: You are required to undertake an internal analysis of the organisation to understand the sustainability issues that the organisation is facing. Internal issues are those that the firm has control over. The internal analysis should help you identify the organisation’s formal and informal sustainability policies and practices. Your internal analysis should be comprehensive and go beyond the customer facing business operations. An internal analysis may involve the following: Primary research Interviews You should aim to set up an interview with the owner/manager of the organisation that you are examining to explore the relevant sustainability issues their company is facing. If possible, you may wish to interview other relevant employees to understand their perception of sustainability and how it impacts the business. This is the preferred mode of primary research. • Additional interviews : You may wish to also interview other members of the supply chain of the industry that the firm operates in (e.g., farmers, manufacturers, distributors) in order to get a better understanding of the sustainability issues the firm faces. This may give you an insight into the sustainability issues that not even the organisation is aware of. These additional

2 interviews do not need to be with direct suppliers to the organisation. Please note: If the owner/manager (or other relevant supply chain members) will only talk to you under condition of anonymity you can assure them that they will remain confidential in the report, and you can use a pseudonym when referring to them in your assignment. Please note: You are required to follow COVID-19 safe health advice whilst undertaking any form of communication with the owner/manager/employees of the organisation and follow relevant state and federal guidelines about social distancing, wearing a mask, staying at home etc. It is desired that you conduct your interview via Zoom/Teams/Skype/FaceTime etc. Personal Communication If you are unable to secure an interview with the relevant owner/manager of the organisation, you may wish to communicate with them about the sustainability issues via email. Please note: Either interviews or personal communication is required for this assignment. You will not be able to have a thorough understanding of the sustainability issues the organisation is facing through observation and secondary research alone. Observations You will be able to observe and take note of the customer facing business operations that are related to the firm’s sustainability issues you are examining. If relevant and if permission is granted, you may also wish to take photos of these business operations and include them in your report. Secondary Research Please note: If you are examining a small to medium organisation, there may only be very limited secondary research available about the company and even less about the specific sustainability policies/practices of the company. If this is the case, you will need to focus your attention more on primary research (i.e. interviews) to get an understanding on the relevant sustainability issues impacting the organisation. Reports You should analyse any publicly available reports (e.g., annual company reports or sustainability reports) for relevant sustainability issues, policies, and practices. Websites and social media pages You should examine the organisation’s website and/or social media accounts (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube) for relevant information about sustainability issues. This information could be directly about sustainability, or it could be information that you use to infer the company’s sustainability policies and practices. News articles You should look for news articles about the organisation and/or interviews with relevant managers with direct or indirect information about sustainability issues, policies, and practices.

3 Stakeholder analysis: Upon conducting your primary and secondary research, based on the information you have collected as part of your research, you should undertake a stakeholder analysis of the organisation. Some questions to consider include: • Who are the organisation’s relevant primary and secondary stakeholders? • What are each stakeholders’ general interests? • What are each stakeholders’ specific interests with regards to sustainability? • How is the organisation performing with regards to these interests? Recommended Tools (Optional): While we do not teach the following management tools in Managing Sustainably, they (and other tools) may be beneficial as part of your internal analysis of the firm’s sustainability issues: • Value chain analysis : You may wish to undertake a value chain analysis which examines the firm’s primary activities (inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and service) and its support activities (firm infrastructure, human resource management, technology development, and procurement) to get you to think about the various elements of the value chain (the full range of activities needed to create a product or service). Importantly, you need to examine how sustainability issues impacts the value chain. You are not required to present the value chain analysis in a figure in your report unless you want to and not all elements of the analysis will necessarily be relevant to the sustainability issues that the company is experiencing. • Organisational resources analysis : You may wish to undertake an analysis of the firm’s organisational resources (human, monetary, raw materials, and capital) with regards to the firm’s present situation and consider how the company is positioned to adopt and implement the changes you are suggesting as part of the sustainability action plan that you are subsequently developing. • SWOT analysis : You may wish to analyse the strengths and the weaknesses of the firm (the SW of the SWOT analysis ) with regards to sustainability. Please note: The opportunities and threats (OT of the SWOT analysis) are elements that the firm does not control and will be relevant to the external analysis discussed below. External analysis: You are also required to undertake an external analysis of the organisation to understand the sustainability issues that the organisation is facing. External issues are those that the firm does not have control over. Your external analysis should consider both current and future sustainability issues. An external analysis may involve the following: Primary research Interviews and/or personal communication and/or observations During your primary research with the relevant manager(s) of the organisation, you should also explore which elements which are outside of the firm’s control that affect their response to relevant sustainability issues and how they develop sustainability policies and practices.

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4 Secondary Research Your secondary research for the external analysis will focus more on the industry that the organisation operates in or more generally on how relevant theories/trends relate to the sustainability issues impacting the organisation. As this secondary research is not about your organisation, you will need to ensure that you specifically link the information of the external environment back to your organisation Databases The University has access to numerous databases that have information about the industry in which your organisation operates. This information may be specific about sustainability and/or more general information that may be relevant in understanding the sustainability issues and trends. We will provide you with information on how to access and navigate these databases. News articles There will be a large volume of news articles available that will discuss the impact that sustainability has on the industry in which your company operates. This also may take the form of videos, podcasts, etc. Reports There may be reports from companies like KPMG and McKinsey & Company about relevant sustainability issues that may affect your organisation. Academic journal articles There will be numerous academic journal articles that discuss broad sustainability issues affecting all organisations as well as those issues affecting the industry in which the organisation operates. In addition, you can find academic journal articles that examine relevant theories covered in this subject that you will use when discussing the impact/limitations of your recommendations etc. Recommended Tools (Optional): Again, there are a number of management tools that we do not teach in Managing Sustainably that may be beneficial as part of your external analysis of the firm’s sustainability issues: • PESTEL analysis : The PESTEL analysis is a tool used to analyse and monitor the macro-environmental factors that may have a profound impact on an organisation’s performance. In particular, you should only focus on external factors that are relevant to sustainability (rather than a general analysis). PESTEL stands for political, economic, social, technological, natural environment, and legal factors. • SWOT analysis : You may wish to analyse the opportunities and threats of the firm (the OT of the SWOT analysis ) with regards to sustainability. The identified opportunities and threats will come from your PESTEL analysis. Phase 3: Action Plan (40%) Now that you have undertaken an internal and external analysis of the sustainability issues affecting the organisation, the next step is to come up with an action plan/list of recommendations to solve/minimise the impact of these issues on the organisation. When developing your sustainability action plan, you should consider the following:

5 • Existing policies : Your action plan/recommendations need to ensure to also improve upon/consider the firm’s existing sustainability policies/practices. o For larger firms, these policies/practices may be formally documented in the company’s annual report or on their website. o For smaller to medium firms, these policies/practices may be more informal in nature. Your recommendations should not ignore the firm’s existing sustainability policies/practices even if they are not formally written down. o These existing policies will have been analysed as part of your research phase of this report. If your new recommendations differ from the firm’s existing sustainability policies/practices, ensure that you justify why you are suggesting that your recommendation is the preferred/superior option moving forward. • Prior research : Your action plan/recommendations should be specific and relevant to the organisation based on the sustainability issues and trends that you have identified through your primary and secondary research. There should not be new information in the action plan phase that was not identified in the research phase. • Implementation : Your action plan/recommendations should be detailed, and you should outline the steps on how the firm could implement each recommendation. Vague, generic recommendations that would work for any organisation in the industry will marked down. o Your action plan/recommendations should consider such elements as: § Who is responsible for implementing the recommendation? § When should the recommendation commence and be completed by (a timeline)? § What resources are needed to complete the task? § What constraints exist that may limit your ability to complete the recommendation? § Which stakeholders are impacted by the recommendation? § What are the outcomes of the recommendation? o There are numerous examples online of different types of action plans. Choose a suitable example or modify an action plan based on your implementation criteria. There is no one perfect action plan but a more detailed plan is preferred for this report. • Assessment : Each of your recommendations should also be assessed based on such elements as complexity of implementation, cost of implementation, resistance to change, etc. You do not need to provide statistics/financial information if you are not able to find it. A subjective assessment (e.g. red = difficult, yellow = medium, green = easy) is acceptable. Again, there is no one perfect assessment criteria. You should build your own based on what you believe is relevant to your action plan. Phase 4: Conclusion (10%) Wrap-up your report by tying together all the various elements you have discussed. Outline how the action plan will fix/solve/minimise the current and future sustainability issues that you have identified for the firm. Discuss any limitations that you have encountered when writing this report.

6 Overview • Due date: Friday, 8 October at 11:59pm (23:59) • Worth: 30% of your final grade • This is a group report. Groups of 3-4 members. Your group assignment team members must all be in the same tutorial. • Format: Business report structure (include table of contents, executive summary) • Total length: 4,000 words, excluding executive summary, headings, sub-headings, in- text citations, your reference list, table of contents, tables, figures, diagrams, and appendices. o Students should not take advantage of these exclusions and reports that clearly abuse this rule (e.g., putting large amounts of words in a table to get their overall word count under 4,000 words) will be penalised. o A table should have rows and columns and each cell should only have a few words to a sentence at most. o All tables, figures, diagrams, and appendices should be labelled, referenced, and referred to in-text. • When you submit your report, please make a word count declaration on your cover page based on how many words you have written (less the above exclusions). • The +/- 10% word limit rule applies. • Extensions need to be officially approved. Make sure to apply for the extension via the Canvas subject page. • Referencing style: APA 7 th referencing style Additional Information To help you complete this task successfully, the following resources are provided: • Marking Rubric — refer to this to understand how you will be assessed • Tips for using Google Scholar — use this guide to help you search for resources • Research guides – refer to these guides to understand how to effectively write and undertake research for this report. They include: o Database guide o Primary research guide o Value chain analysis o Organisational resources analysis o SWOT analysis o PESTEL analysis o Action plan guide

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