Posted: February 18th, 2015

Explain Unilever’s business model and how it seeks to be responsible to society and to the environment.

ssessment Submission

YOUR ASSIGNMENT IS TO WRITE A REFLECTIVE ESSAY IN WHICH YOU DO THE FOLLOWING:

1. Explain Unilever’s business model and how it seeks to be responsible to society and to the environment. Include some discussion of how this responsibility may be important to your home country.
2. Explain whether or not you think that Unilever’s model is or is not desirable for stockholders (those who own equity shares in Unilever. They are considered to be the owners of Unilever).
3. Discuss a particular problem that Unilever faces. That problem follows from the fact that the group we call “stockholders” is diverse.  Some investors are only interested in the short-term profits of a company.  Other investors are interested in the long-term profits of a company.  Carrying out social and environmental responsibilities as Unilever tries to do can affect short-term and long-term investors differently.  Explain that difference.  Do you think that Unilever should sacrifice its social and environmental commitments in order to be responsible to “short-term” investors, those who want to make a profit in the short-term and really don’t care about the long-term profitability of Unilever?  Defend your position with arguments.
4. Discuss whether or not you personally would invest in a company if you knew that its short-term (1 to 3 years) profit would be lower because of its social and environmental responsibilities?
5. Do you think that society would be better off if more companies were as committed to social and environmental issues as is Unilever? Do you think that our governments should require companies to be as socially and environmentally responsible as Unilever?  Discuss the long-term implications for all of us (including stockholders) if we allow companies to focus simply on returns to shareholders.

This case study should be between 1500 and 2000 words.  That is about 6 to 8 double-spaced A4 pages with a font size of 12.  The case should be submitted to me in the manner described for all assignments in the subject outline.  The marking criteria are as described in the subject outline.