Business Society and Planet Undertaking an Assessment

Question: Describe about the Business Society and Planet for Undertaking an Assessment. Answer: Identification and Description of Companies This particular report is produced with the intention of undertaking an assessment of differences of sustainability of the organizational approaches dedicated to the respective society. For satisfying such aim, two different companies operating in the global market are selected from the automotive industry of two diverse countries. Firstly, the German leading automobile company known as Volkswagen Group is chosen for the study, as the company has left a superior footmark in the global environment with its product offerings and approaches to different economies and societies. Volkswagen is a German multinational corporation operating as a car manufacturing business and was founded in 1937. The company covers the worldwide market with the operations are importantly controlled and monitored from headquarter located at Wolfsburg, Germany. In order to maintain the demands of its global customer base, it had produced almost 9.8 million vehicles in 2013 to become one of the leading car manu facturing organizations globally while holding the largest market share in the entire Europe for around 20 years (Carroll Buchholtz, 2014). The second company selected for creating this report is Jaguar, which is a luxury vehicle brand of Jaguar Land Rover. Jaguar Land Rover is a British multinational car manufacturer, which is actually owned by the automotive giant, Tata Motors since 2008. The company was originally founded by Sir William Lyons and William Walmsley in 1922. The operations of the company is highly emphasised in the United Kingdom while controlled and overseen by headquarters located at Whitney, Coventry (Ferrell Fraedrich, 2015). The luxury vehicles manufactured by the corporation is specifically dedicated for the high-income level communities of the country. For example, the company has produced cars for British Prime Minister in the recent years. However, the critical question for carrying out an investigation as part of the research is based on whether the activities and manufacturing operations adopted by these companies are adequately addressing the social and environmental balance. Based on the initial examination of the sustainability reports published by the two organizations, it is informed that both the firm provide momentous importance to their respective corporate social responsibilities. The identified firms commonly measure the development of corporate social responsibilities via undertaking decisive audit and investing heavily in the green initiatives (Smith, 2014). Difference of dealing with issues regarding Two Companies According to Caroll and Buchholtz (2014), the global economic environment is comprised with the involvement of strict and dominating regulations related to the fuel usage across the worldwide stage. Hence, the automotive companies from different nations around the world are required sternly complying with the identified rules and guidelines premeditated by these definite policies. These plans are designed by the international environmentalists and policymakers with the intention of reducing the effects of global warming and ensuring the activities planned by the automotive industry to be compliant (Zikmund, et al., 2013). Furthermore, it is critically observed that the contemporary and future demands of the global industries including the auto industry are widely influenced by the participation of new generation of customers. Based on the indication of Farrell and Fraedrich (2015), the car industry in the international business environment is continuously looking for a profound level of fuel economy and sustainability regarding the mobility of activities, which can be efficiently driven by the buying decisions taken by the new age of customers. From the analysis of sustainability reports involving both the companies, it is significantly noted that global climate change regulations and initiatives as part of the European Union (EU) are considerably addressed and responded through the reflection of social responsibilities of both companies associated with the operational process (Crane, et al., 2014). Especially, in case of Jaguar, it is severely required conforming with the stringent standards and requirements employed by the country government regarding the use of gasoline and other necessary elements facilitating the maintenance of fuel efficiencies in the passenger and personal vehicles. The particular understanding leads toward developing a suitable assessment of the difference in approaches undertaken by the two companies by explicitly providing attention to the range of issues dealt with the companies signified within the reports. The overall process is done for driving the assessment of the quality of individual reports produced by the two separate firms by considering the criteria outlined by Zadek, et al., (1997). Specifically, the report is looking to measure the appropriateness of the approaches developed by the recognised companies for meeting the specified standards for crafting useful recommendation promoting the improvement of contents used in the reports and activities assumed by the international organizations (Bocken, et al., 2014). The sustainability reports of two automotive companies provide significant importance to the ESG criteria covering environmental, social, and corporate governance aspects. The assessment of these reports has provided major strides regarding dealing with similar kind of sustainability issues like management approaches, environmental protection, corporate governance and ethical practices, human rights and workplace practices, and quality of strategies and products. Arguably, the different I observed regarding the reporting structure followed by Volkswagen and Jaguar. In case of Volkswagen, the entire report is suitably divided into some principle categories including the economy, society, environment, sustainability, and mobility. Alternative, the report published by Jaguar covers the chapters like management, social contributions, environmental protection, roles and responsibilities of organizational members, and customer satisfaction (Beschorner, 2014). From the context of management approach, the roles, and functions developed by the managers are Volkswagen is critically influenced by guidelines specified by the CSR strategy of the firm. It is observed that approaches elaborated by the management of the organization are directed towards achieving sustainable mobility by the implications of sustainable objectives defined by the top class team. Dissimilarly, Jaguars corporate governance statement is responsible for disclosing the information driving the engagement of the management to interact with the key stakeholders (Schudson, 2013). The precise process is significantly based on fulfilling the superior requirements of the organizational stakeholders while capturing opportunities for contributing to the society and overall ecosystem involving the operational diameter of the business. Lastly, the difference in handling the issues by the two identified companies can be observed from the corporate social governance and ethical practices followed by the business proceedings. Smith (2014) has dictated that Volkswagen provides value to some essential factors like customer satisfaction, sustainable relationship with the suppliers, risk management and compliance, smooth flow of raw materials, and economic stability for developing is corporate responsibility from the social context. In addition, the company believes that these individually identified factors will contribute to the establishment of an ethical dimension to the approaches and practices embraced by the business (Morali Searcy, 2013). On the contrary, Jaguar provides priority to some considerable areas for ensuring appropriateness in the course of building corporate social responsibilities and ethical considerations embedded in the approaches. These areas include an internal control system, implementation of CSR in the value chain, compliance department, risk management, and customer satisfaction. From the analysis of both priorities put forwarded by the identified organizations, it can be determined that customer satisfaction is commonly provided a substantial amount of importance for driving the remarkable development of products and catering the main requirements of organizational stakeholders (Gereffi Lee, 2016). In conclusion, it is noteworthy that Jaguar has provided extensive information in its social and corporate reports regarding safety approaches and measures developed by the firm in its vehicles, infrastructures, and operations. The information maintained by the company clearly reveals how the security requirements can be preserved and achieved by the firm through counting superiorly on the use of technology. Based on the suggestions reflected from the works of Zikmund, et al., (2013), the information included in the report is continuously based on looking for an efficient way to increase customer satisfaction. Some of the already identified methods, as determined from the information are improving product quality, manufacturing appealing products, and enhancing the quality of after-sales services. Hence, these are the significant differences in formulating and adopting approaches by the two identified companies for handling and mitigating the issues associated with the modern social and environmental perspectives. Explanation of Difference With the help of proposal made by Crane, et al., (2014), it is noted that the different terror incidents and explosion in London have significantly influenced shaping up its approaches and practices developed in the sustainability reports by Jaguar. Apart from that, the numerous occurrences of the earthquake in different countries have significantly forced the company to take adequate measures and reflect relevant information in its report (Nica, 2013). The report also crucially includes a one-paragraph long personal expression from the chairperson of the company indicating the sympathies and condolence message on behalf of the enterprise. The underlying intention of the proposed paragraph is demonstrating evidence on how the company is shaping up its approaches for formulating the fundamental ethical strategies. Based on the investigation carried out by Brocken (2014), the imperative aim of these policies is deploying the disaster response plan in the proper place for providing much -needed supports and benefits to the affected areas. On the other hand, the code of ethics included in the approaches embraced by Volkswagen is effectively compromised by the German Code of Corporate Governance, as the entire automotive industry is liable to keep their operations in line with the associated guidelines (Zadek, Evans, Pruzan, 2013). From the analysis of the report published by the company, it is reflected that the corporation has its set of ethical codes and principles related to the corporate conducts subsequently influenced by the principles implied by the country. In this particular scenario, Beschorner (2014) has explained that the Board of Management and a Supervisory Board of Volkswagen AG are issued by the company annually for checking and supervising the conformity. On the other hand, Jaguar has developed its particular set of code of conducts influenced by the social, economic, and environmental criteria (Matten, 2015). Assessment of Apparent Quality of Social Accounting Approach Some of the useful criteria were highlighted by Zadek, et al., (1997) for enabling the inclusion of adequate quality in the reporting process. Based on the explanation of the work, quality is a fundamental requirement of social accounting process. In this case, the criteria mentioned by the authors are importantly included in the development of critical discussion due to their ability to guide the corporate approaches and forcing them to adopt the best practices. Therefore, the assessment should need to be conducted from the areas covering inclusivity, evolution, disclosure, comparability, external verification, management policies and system, completeness, and continuous improvement for measuring the conformity of the best practices adopted by the selected companies (Blome Paulraj, 2013). Extent of Reflection of Stated Values in the Social Reports The assessment conducted from the mentioned perspectives suggests a suitable idea clarifying the extent of reflecting the stated values by the social reports developed by these firms for ensuring the emergence of a standardised approach for the society. From the context of modern day environment, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Version 3.1 is a widely used framework for ensuring and maintaining a standardized sustainability to the social reporting and approaches embraced by the firms (Epstein Buhovac, 2014). In order to compile their reports, both the companies have adopted the framework in their reporting process. However, the two enterprises in their reports do not conform to the exact guidelines and structures dictated by GRI. From the discussion of Schudson (2013), appropriate conformation with the guidelines of GRI framework would provide vibrant qualities to the overall social report making it easier for the readers to find, navigate, and compare specific data and informati on. However, it is worth to mention that maintaining all the requirements and guidelines according to the directives and principles referred to by the GRI framework is almost impossible for the companies due to their individual styles and tools of creating social reports (Hoffman, Frederick Schwartz, 2014). Conclusion From the overall analysis, the obtained information suggests that reporting the sustainability performance of the global organizations in a well-deserving manner is imperative for managing the organizational impact towards the sustainable development. It is also determined that there is the involvement of greater amount of challenges in managing sustainable development forcing the firms to gain the ability for exerting positive changes based on the economic, social, and environmental conditions worldwide. References Beschorner, T. (2014). Creating shared value: The one-trick pony approach.Business Ethics Journal Review,1(17), 106-112. Blome, C., Paulraj, A. (2013). Ethical climate and purchasing social responsibility: A benevolence focus.Journal of Business Ethics,116(3), 567-585. Bocken, N. M. P., Short, S. W., Rana, P., Evans, S. (2014). A literature and practice review to develop sustainable business model archetypes.Journal of cleaner production,65, 42-56. Carroll, A. 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